Google This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on Hbrary shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project to make the world's books discoverable online. It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover. Marks, notations and other maiginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the publisher to a library and finally to you. Usage guidelines Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we liave taken steps to prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying. We also ask that you: + Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for personal, non-commercial purposes. + Refrain fivm automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help. + Maintain attributionTht GoogXt "watermark" you see on each file is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it. + Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liabili^ can be quite severe. About Google Book Search Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web at |http : //books . google . com/| -,■^l' f ACROSS THE DEAD LINE OF AMUSEMENTS lAlHil 1 By Helen Russ Stough A Mother^ s Tear Illustrated by Sarah K. Smithy 12mOf cloth J net $1,25. Thoughts for every day of the year from great authors: President Roose- velt, Lowell, Channing, Hawthorne, Whittier, Field, Longfellow, Dickens, Holmes, Bryant, Riley, Sangster, Bar- rie, and many others. "Verses and thoughts relating to the duties, responsibilities and joys of Motherhood, bringing a new realiza- tion in its wide range of current litera- ture on matters of child and mother- hood."— y^/^owj' Argus, ACROSS THE DEAD LINE OF AMUSEMENTS By -^,^'^ ^v HENRY Wi' STOUGH, D.D. y U - -.•, « « * ^ • • • • - • - . ' ' • • • • - • - • - • r • ' o" • •••.•, * •" •-- .: •« - New York Chicago TOUONTO Fleming H. Revell Company London and EDiNBVROii ^ I -I \ . ^ • . ^ » Gopyriglit, 1912, by 7LEMINQ H. BEYELL COMPANY r * • • • t - * • •• Trie: M.' 'J YOP.K Pll, T T "> T 94t9 L genioos, safe as well as rational, moral as well as intellectual. Thej must have nothing in them which may be likely to excite any of the tempers which it is his daily task to subdue; any of the passions which it is his constant business to keep in order. His chosen amusements must not deliberately add to the ' ' weight ' ' which he is commanded to ' ' lay aside ' ' ; they should not imitate the besetting sin against which he is struggling; they should not obstruct that spiritual mindedness which he is told is life and peace; they should not inflame the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, which he is forbidden to gratify. — Eannah More, The Tragedy of the Theatre THEEE is a radical distinction to be made in any discussion of this subject between the theatre as an organized business, and the drama as literature. The drama, of course, is the handmaid of the theatre, without which it would be impossible for it to exist, and upon which it draws for much of its inspiration. On the other hand, the drama exists separate and apart from the theatre as literature which can be studied and enjoyed, without the neces- sity of being acted. That the study of worthy drama is invaluable for education and culture, goes without saying. Some of the greatest lit- erary productions of the centuries have come down to us in this form. The theatre was intended, in its inception, to be the exponent of the drama, to further it in its work of education and culture, as one of the fine arts. But, because of the great revenues derived therefrom, the theatre was soon or- ganized as a commercial business, and as such was steadily developed until, within the past few years, so great has been the profit, that it is now largely conducted as a consolidated trust, 13 14 Across the Dead Line of Amusements with an investment of millions of dollars in properties and in contracts with hundreds of actors and actresses. To-day every city in the country is being ex- ploited, each has its various play-houses on what are called dramatic circuits. Companies, owned and operated by these trusts, are booked throughout the entire season. Into' the coffers of these theatres pours a stream of millions of dollars spent each year by the pleasure-seeking public. The theatre has become a vital factor in our American life, being one of the greatest teach- ers of the people, next in power to the press and the pulpit. As such it calls for the closest scrut- iny and most searching inquiry upon the part of moral people. Thus it becomes evident that the drama is one thing and the theatre quite another. My ob- ject is not to discuss the drama, nor even an ideal theatre as the worthy exponent of the drama. The late Dr. Brand, of Oberlin, said: **The ideal theatre is an ideal idea. It has never existed. ' ' My object is to discuss the theatrical business as it exists to-day. It may almost seem Don Quixotian for one to protest against the theatre when some of the most moral and refined people, even of the churches and clergy, attend it, endorse it, and recommend it to their children and parishioners. The Tragedy of the Theatre 15 How much good the presentation of the follow- ing arguments may do, I do not even venture to hope. If, however, they are in any way sug- gestive to inquiring minds and hearts, I shall feel amply repaid. The Ancient Condemnation Dramatic acting has existed from time imme* morial, but even the ancient writers of moral truth, both Greek and Eoman, frowned upon the theatre and almost universally condemned it. Plutarch, Xenophon, Plato, Socrates, Solton, Seneca, Tacitus, Ovid, and many others have raised one common voice against it as hostile to morals. **An English writer in the time of Charles the First,*' says Dr. Thomas Brainerd, ^^made a catalogue of authorities against the stage, which contains almost every name of emi- nence in the heathen and Christian world.'' Plato once said, ** Plays raise the passions and pervert the use of them, and of a consequence are dangerous to morality. '* Aristotle said, **The seeing of plays and comedies should be forbidden to young people until age and disci- pline have made them proof against debauch- ery. * ' Tacitus said, * * The German women were guarded against danger and preserved their purity by having no play-houses among them.'* Uhlhom, writing of the theatre in the Boman Empire, said, **The adventures of deceived hus- 16 Across the Dead Line of Amusements bands, adulteries, and amorous intrigues formed the staple of the plots. Virtue was made a mock of, the gods were scoffed at, and every thing worthy of veneration was dragged in the mire/' Philip Schaflf, the historian, said, **The Eo- man theatre became more and more the nursery of vice and deserved to be abhorred by all men of decent feeling and refined taste. '* Dramatic art took its rise at Athens, we are told, amid the orgies of Bacchus. **It was an exhalation from the frantic revels of a periodical national aban- donment to intoxication and debauchery. ' ' All this was said about theatres where women never appeared, when their parts were acted by men and boys, as is the case at the present time in the Chinese theatres. It is said no woman ever appeared on the stage until the time of the Bestoration. The first time a woman ever acted was in Shakes- peare's Othello in the part of * * Desdemona. ' ' It was regarded at first, Dr. Brand says, as shock- ing and monstrous. \ Woman's presence did not purify the stage, for Macauley declares that from *'the time the theatres (in England) were opened they became seminaries of vice. Nothing charmed the de- praved audience so much as to hear lines grossly indecent repeated by a beautiful girl supposed not yet to have lost her innocence." The Tragedy of the Theatre 17 The Church and the Theatre The church has tried both methods, to con- demn and to condone. Dr. W. P. Breed said, * ' There was a theatre in Jerusalem in the days of Jesus. Think you He ever attended itt Did the early disciples f So far from it that neither Jesus nor the apostles ever thought of forbid- diQg their attendance upon stage plays. ' ' When Herod introduced this theatre, Josephus (not a Christian) denounced it as corrupting the mor- als of the Jewish people. The church very early introduced into her conditions for membership an express prohibi- tion against the theatre. Dr. Taylor Lewis says, **At baptism the candidate was called upon to say ^Vanis mundi pompis renuntio^ — *The vain pomp of the world I renounce \ It can be clearly shown that this word ^pompae^ was employed with special reference to theatrical shows.'* Theophilus, TertuUian, St. Cyprian, St. Augus- tine, all denounced it. The mystery and miracle plays were intro- duced during the Middle Ages and were acted very widely. The art of printing being not yet known it was thought the people could be taught spiritual truths from the stage. How- ever, the results were never satisfactory, and finally were deteriorating. Lecky says that after the thirteenth century they became one 18 Across the Dead Line of Amusements of the most powerful agents in bringing the church, and, indeed, religion, into disrepute. Eef ormers then tried to correct abuses. * * Two hundred clergymen,'* says Mrs. Mowatt, the actress, ** wrote for the stage, but all in vain!*' Dr. Brainerd says that fifty-four ancient and modem general, national, and provincial syn- ods, both of the Eastern and Western churches, have pronounced against the theatre, and that the condemnatory sentence of seventy-one ancient fathers, and one hundred and fifty mod- em Catholic and Protestant writers are on record. Conferences, assemblies, synods, asso- ciations, have all with one voice registered their protest. All these could not have been without worthy reasons, and it is to set forth these rea- sons that I am writing these words. The Indictment My indictment against the theatre is two-fold : I. The theatre 's effect upon the audience, n. The theatre's effect upon the profession. The Theatre^ s Effect upon the Audience: The first harmful effect is the gloss that many plays put upon sin. The base, the wicked, the impure, are frequently exalted, and virtue is made sport of. Eeligion is scoffed at, blas- phemy indulged in, the Bible standard is not recognized, and the Ten Conunandments are frequently flaunted. The Tragedy of Hie Theatre 19 Hannah More was the friend of the actor Qarrick, and in her earlier days a writer for the theatre and one of its patrons. As her judg- ment, forced upon her by her own observation, she wrote — though she says she had read none of the writings against the stage— *' The fruits of the Spirit and the fruits of the stage perhaps exhibit as pointed a contrast as the human imagination can conceive. * * She continues, * * It is generally the leading ob- ject of the dramatist to erect a standard of honor in direct opposition to the standard of Christianity ; and this is not done subordinately, incidentally, occasionally, but worldly honor is the very soul and spirit and life-giving prin- ciple of the drama. Honor is the religion of tragedy. It is her moral and political law. Her dictates form its institutes. Fear and shame are the capital crimes in her code. Against these all the eloquence of her most powerful pleaders, against these her penal statutes — ^pis- tol, sword, and poison — are in full force. In- jured honor can only be vindicated at the point of the sword; the stains of injured reputation can only be washed out with blood. Love, jeal- ousy, ambition, pride, revenge, are too often elevated into the rank of splendid virtues, and form a dazzling system of worldly morality in direct contradiction to the spirit of that religion whose characteristics are charity, meekness, 20 Across the Dead Line of Amusements peaceableness, long-suffering, gentleness and forgiveness/' Too frequently the end is made to justify the means, provided it succeeds in the achievement of some noble and worthy purpose. The high- est type of morality is to be found in Christian- ity and in the Bible, and whenever standards are raised and morals taught which are not in accord with these, but which, on the other hand, make light of them and scoff at them, such teaching is bound to be destructive to the moral sensibilities. Dr. J.oseph Stephan has said, **Eeligion is either ridiculed, or so presented as to become offensive. Criminals become heroes and the good appear simpletons. Murder, adultery, di- vorce, theft, and other great crimes are made light of, and the sacredness of love and the solemnity of dying are trifled with. Oaths, mock prayers, and turns and quibs in Scripture are frequent. By sly hints and cunning innuen- does the imagination is inflamed and evil thoughts are awakened. There is scarcely an incident, however debasing, that may not be learned at the theatre, making it a university of vice and immorality for the youthful mind. ' * A recent magazine writer has said, **In life there are two kinds of morals, yours and mine. In the drama there is a third kind, which has no relation to life whatever. We are often The Tragedy of the Theatre 21 asked in the play-house to accept as admirable and moral what is in reality contemptible, im- moral ; and what is worse, we do so accept it. *'We check onr own moral code in the cloak- room before the play begins, and then are al- lured by the most immoral, impure things pos- ing as virtue on the stage, and are warmed to a rich glow of sympathetic sanctity by situations which upon analysis are the negation of good- ness. ''And this is entirely due to the fact that in the theatre we are carried along from moment to moment without pausing to reflect upon cause or effect ; and the dramatist is so carried along, also, in his desire to make each situation imme- diately effective, forgetting its larger signifi- cance. In other words, in the drama, as else- where, a lack of clear thinking, down to the bed- rock of principles, is the cause of most of the falsity and misappreciation. ' ' These words are the more forceful because the writer was not writing from the standpoint of the pulpit, but of the dramatic critic. The disastrous effect of such a ** checking of our morals in the cloak-room *' is that when people leave such plays, they, alas! too often leave their own code of morals permanently checked, and take home those the theatre fur- nishes, — the ** admirable and moraP' exchanged for the ** contemptible and immoral.'' 22 Across the Dead Line of Amusements The second harmful effect is the theatre's Positive Teaching of Crime. For instance, methods and means by which murders, robber- ies, and other crimes are committed are set forth in all their lurid details, and instructions in crime are frequently given as explicitly as are the studies of the public schools. So com- mon is this in many of the so-called melo-dramas that even theatrical managers themselves have at times protested. One of these, Mr. J. J. Butler, of Kansas City, was reported as saying that many dramas are morbid and unclean, and that many of the melo- dramas presented each year are ** schools of crime, '* — they actually make criminals. In discussing the epidemic of crime which breaks out in Chicago nearly every season. Bishop Fallows said with regard to the various causes, ** Worst of all, in my judgment, are the realistic plays of robbery and murder in several of our lower theatres, which are frequented nightly by thousands of boys, and the advertis- ing of such plays by immense posters portray- ing to the life the * hold-ups' by masked gangs with pistol and rifle and dagger.'' Other re- formers and settlement workers have expressed themselves in a similar way . Some instances in illustration of this fact are very striking. In Canada some time ago a thir- teen-year-old girl confessed to the murder of a The Tragedy of the Theatre 23 nine-months-old infant. It is said she was in the habit of stealing baby carriages from the front of department stores while the mothers were inside. One day she stole a baby, took it to the woods near the city, stripped it of its clothing, threw it over an embankment, and caused its death. She then placed the body in a culvert and buried the clothing. A few days later she made the announcement that she had discovered the baby in the culvert. When ac- cused of the crime, she confessed that the plan of killing the child was suggested to her by a play she had seen at the theatre. In New York, a man was arrested as a pyro- maniac, first for ringing in false alarms, then for a series of factory fires. He confessed, and said that he developed a desire to see fires burn through his interest in a play entitled *T?he Fire Bug,'* in which he had taken part as an amateur actor. This baneful influence has extended even to the moving picture shows through the exhibition of dramatic films. Eecently a film was shown of a girl who deceived her parents by going to her room for the night, and fixing the bed-clothes in such a way that they appeared as if some one were in the bed. She then crawled out of the window and spent the night in gay frivolity with her friends. A young girl who sat in the audi- epce aijd saw the suggestive deception, thought 24 Across the Dead Linb of Amusements it clever, and a few days later did precisely the same thing. In the morning her mother went to call her, saw the deceptive bed-clothes, thought her daughter was overtired and let her sleep. She called her a second time, but she did not respond, and, beiQg an indulgent mother, she let her sleep a little longer. The third time, receiving no answer, and knowing it was time for her daughter to be up, she went over and touched the bed-clothes, which immediately col- lapsed. The mother was frightened and ran shrieking from the room, to call the father over the 'phone, and send out the alarm. At last they found the girl in another part of the city, where she had spent t^e balance of the night with a girl friend, after going out on a lark. Thus the * * show ' ' had been a veritable school of deception, suggested immorality, and crime. The police of our great cities have declared that certain theatres are the foster-mothers of crime among the youth. The Director of Pris- ons in Paris once said, ** Whenever a noted play of a vicious character is put on the boards, I have soon found it out by the number of young fellows who come into my custody. *' Three- fourths of the young people who go wrong in our cities, can look back to the theatre and the ball-room as the starting poiats of their down- fall. The tbefttre }s to b? coudenijied for its UnreOfl The Tragedy of the Theatre 25 Presentation of Life. Dr. Brand said, **The theatre's appeal to the sensibilities and passions is uniformly exaggerated and extreme. Not only do its plots consist of assassinations, poi- sonings, and illicit loves and intrigues, but every passion is overdrawn. Anger is madness ; am- ^ .aon, frenzy ; love, delirium. It does not hold the mirror up to Nature except in her very worst aspects and her most degraded moods. Nature is not always after money. Nature is not al- ways in an agony of either horror or laughter. Nature is not always languishing with a great sorrow on her face and a bottle of laudanum in her pocket, weeping last tears over a false lover. Nature is not always nude, whirling around on one great toe, while the other is up in the air. Nature is not always armed with pistol and bowie-knife. Nature is not always roaring through the streets with clenched fists, dishev- elled hair, and blood-shot eyes. She is not al- ways cutting throats and playing the harlot. Nature never ridicules religion and morality, for an entrance fee. Nature is sane, rational, decently clad, patient, self-contained, not living for cash, even divinely beautiful at times, like her Maker. ' ' The theatre thus presents a different world from that in which nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand live. The majority of people do pot live in the atmosphere ojF intrigue, 26 Across the Dead Line of Amusements illicit love, deception, murder, and other vile crimes. Most people have never seen a bur- glary or a murder except on the stage. If they have ever been forced to do so, it has been a shock from which they have been a long time re- covering, nor is it an experience to be desired a second time. It cannot be said that its effect upon them was in any way beneficial. Then how, in any way, can its mimic reproduction on the stage be beneficial f The costuming, the glitter, the tinsel, the un- real, coupled with the moral gloss, and the posi- tive portrayal of crime, unfit the spectator for the humdrum life next morning. Nerves have been stretched to the breaking point ; minds and senses have been dazzled and intoxicated so that neither body, mind, nor spirit is fitted for the new day's work. People are made discon- tented, hence incapable of faithfully undertak- ing the responsibilities of the work-a-day world, which is so different from the mimic theatre world. Instead of relaxing and recuperating tired minds and bodies, it stimulates and ex- cites, with subsequent reaction and enervation. The fourth harmful effect is the Indecent Dis- play of Nudity. The costuming in the average theatre is positively immodest, indecent, and im- moral. The theatre 's appeal is to the sensuous and the sensual. This is a deliberate policy upon the part of the managers, who know th§ The Tragedy of the Theatre 27 weakness of poor human nature. For many theatrical plays, actresses are chosen solely for their physical charms. In musical extravagan- zas, for instance, it is vastly more important that an actress should have a pretty face and a beau- tiful form than that she should have a pleasing voice. A glimpse at many of the bill boards substantiates this statement; for, as with Lady Waldemar, in Mrs. Browning's Aurora Leigh, They split the amaranth bodice down To the waist, or nearly, with the audacious press Of full-breathed beauty. If the heart within "Were half as white ! But if it were, perhaps The breast were closer covered, and the sight Less aspectable by half, too. I do not say by any means that all theatre people are immoral. But I do say that if you will only stop to consider for a moment what it would mean to any woman to garb herself as these women are garbed and come out and stand on a platform before the gaze of a crowd of people, you will agree that no actress can get the consent of her conscience and her mod- esty so to do, unless at some previous time that modesty and delicacy have received a moral shock. There must have been a shrinking and embarrassment when the first costume was don- ned and when the first appearance was made, for no woman has stood behind the foot-lights, and looked down into the eyes of an audience, 28 Across the Dead Line of Amusements without reading in many of them the looks of lust and hearts of wickedness. To a refined and modest woman such consciousness once must have given excruciating moral agony, — to know that she was the object of such lust, feasting it- self upon her physical charms. People who know what is going to take place and who go deliberately to see are not excusable. The managers who furnish such plays, actresses who make themselves the objects of such moral lust, audiences who indulge their visual pas- sions, are all equally culpable before God, The next harmful effect is the Breaking Down of the Moral Barriers of the Audience. How can a yoimg man and a young woman who have come together to enjoy the play, and have look- ed upon and have listened to su^h things, fail to be contaminated f When they go home they naturally are impelled to discuss what they have seen and heard. As one scene after another of the various acts is reviewed, and the oaths, curses, innuendoes, compromising positions, false morals, and vile costuming are discussed, they are bound to break down the barriers of modesty and reserve between them. Such con- versation courts familiarity about topics that young people should never discuss together. The result is that each loses a certain respect for the other, making it more easy for them to talk about such things on other occasions and at The Tragedy of the Theatre 29 least tempting them to do the same things, especially when the theatre's false morals are also adopted. If the theatre be a means of cul- ture and education, and yet snch things as are seen there cannot be even safely discussed by young people, let alone practiced, then where is the moral value of the theatre f For instance, the intrigues and affinities and kindred immoralities portrayed upon the stage arouse suspicion in the audience. Here is a hus- band who perhaps has had a misunderstanding with his wife. The stage suggestion is almost identical with something he saw in his wife's actions at home, and immediately arouses his suspicions of her; whereas the wife may have been perfectly innocent of any wrong doing. Thus are jealousy and dissension bred in the home, frequently leading to divorce. Besides this, husbands and wives, perhaps, whose love has grown cold, here find suggestions by which they may deceive each other and lead double lives. Much of the tragedy of the divorce court can be traced to the tragedy of the stage. When men lose their respect for womanhood, through displayed nudity, through the breaking down of moral barriers, and through the generating of lustful desires, marriage vows are lightly treated, and divorce becomes an easy method of ridding the contracting parties of their respon- 30 Across the Dead Line of Amusements sibilities, leaving them free to repeat their lusts elsewhere. I am persuaded that the theatre is responsible, more than any one other thing, for the increasing number of divorces in our coun- try. With the dance, it is the chief feeder of the brothel, as divorced women make up the majority of professional prostitutes. Another harmful effect is the ^^ Rotting of the Will by the Fomentation of the Sensibilities/' to use the words of Dr. Washington Gladden. The sights, scenes, and sounds of the plays continually stir the emotions, play upon the affections, briaging the whole psychic nature in- to intense excitement. As they furnish no out- let or vent, the consequences is the gradual de- caying of the fibre of the will. For instance, the sympathies are stirred for the unfortunate, pitiable condition of the lit- tle orphan match-seller, who, in the bitter cold, clad in mere rags, sinks down to freeze and starve on the city streets. Women will sit and weep over the pathos of the scene and have the deeper moral sensibilities of their hearts stirred, but they either do not know or do not care that children in the great city all round them are at that moment literally starving and freezing. Though they weep over the child in the mimic world, they never think of going forth into the real world to find real suffering chil- The Tragedy of the Theatre 31 dren and to bring them needed comfort and re- lief. ' * There may be a starving family in a neigh- borhood court, a sick and dying domestic in a garret, or a poor relative reduced from af- fluence to beggary. But what are all these to the theatre-going lady, who has been accustomed every night to see kings dethroned, imprisoned, murdered; princes wandering in beggary and starvation; nobles outlawed and put to death; mothers butchered in the presence of their children and maidens betrayed and seeking re- venge with a dagger or with poison. What are the real ills of life to one who lives amid such scenes as these! They are the unheeded sigh- ings of the zephyr in ears filled by the roar of the tomato. They are the slightest murmurs of the rivulet to one who dwells under the voice of Niagara *s cataract. ' ' ' * Save me and mine from the tender mercies of such as have daily poured their sympathy on fictitious sorrow imtil the hackneyed hearts have now no deep affections. I would as soon trust the strength of a man who had kept an open vein for the daily waste of his own blood." Such toying and tampering with the emotions, the affections, and the sympathies, is absolutely dangerous. That they can look upon such scenes and not be impelled to go forth in holy 32 Across the Dead Line of Amusements service for hnmanity, means no less than that the will is in decay. The psychological impressions of such plays graduaUy become stimulating, then intoxicating, so that people go to enjoy having their sensibili- ties stirred, as men drink stimulants. Life be- comes to them hypocrisy, mockery, and a scoff at the real tragedies of sorrows and tears. The world goes on unrelieved by their love and sym- pathy, but is used as a means to entertain them by its misery. Characters have become flaccid and flabby and so fail to develop sympathy, sin- cerity, and heart earnestness in life. Dr. Glad- den says, **I do not believe that any habitual or inveterate play-goer ever achieved conspicu- ous success in business, in statesmanship, or in professional life.'* Of the French Revolution, the celebrated Ed- mund Burke writes: '* While courts of justice were thrust out by Jacobin tribunals, and silent churches were only funereal monuments of de- parted religion,'* when Paris ''was like a den of outlaws, a lewd tavern for revel and de- baucheries" — there were in that city ''no fewer than twenty-eight theatres crowded every night. * ' From debauchery, blasphemy, and but- chery in the day time to the theatre at night, — from the theatre at night back to butchery, blas- phemy and debauchery in the day time! And as at Eome when the bloody gladiatorial The Tragedy of the Theatre 33 combats and fights with wild beasts, and perse- cutions of Christians were demanded at last to satisfy the craving for excitement, so in Paris the **f ©mentation of the sensibilities in the mimic worW at last demanded the real, the actual. Some of the darkest pages in history are to be traced to the theatre's demoralization of character. The Harmful Effect upon the Theatrical Pro- fession: First, because it Breaks Down the Moral Barriers Between the Actors and Actresses by Constant and Undue Familiarity. All the liberties that belong to the close and con- fidential relations of marriage, parenthood, and the home, are permitted on the stage. It is taken for granted that actors and actresses have perfect moral rights to caress each other in all the accepted ways love has inspired. If a man is an actor he may hold the actress on his lap, encircle her with his arms, imprint his kisses upon her lips, to the gaze of the admiring audience; and yet this same crowd would be insulted if the same things should be taking place in the audience at the same time. It is hard to understand why, because people call- ing themselves "actors'' and ''actresses," are on a platform, three feet or more abovft. others, and because an admission fee is charged. 34 !A!cross the Dead Line of Amusements society will accept tliat which they would not accept under any other conditions. It is hard to see how these artificial things destroy or abrogate a moral principle. If these social privileges cannot be permitted off the stage, how, in the name of decency and ethics, can they be permitted on the stage? People have just as much moral right to do these things off the stage as on ! How would it look, for instance, for a woman, for the sake of raising a church debt, or for any other worthy cause, to advertise that she would permit certain men, certain evenings of the week in her parlor, to go through the same panto- mime as the stage folks go through, at a price of twenty-five cents a ticket? But this is not all. This actor and actress do this night after night and day after day, for months at a time. Whether they are purely professional about it or not, it certainly means that the familiarity thus indulged is detrimental to their own morals. Women and men cannot indulge in such things, made as they are of flesh and blood, with natural passions and temptations, without hav- ing moral barriers broken down. If the caresses mean nothing to them at the time and with the stage lover, they will mean something on other occasions with other people. It is, therefore, not surprising to read in the The Tragedy of the Theatre 35 papers continually that actors and actresses have been involved in scandal that ended in the divorce courts. The true meaning of love and marriage has been lost to many of their lives. Add to this the Bohemian life of travel together in sleeping cars and hotels, forced to put up with the inconveniences involved, and it be- comes evident that only those of the strongest moral fibre can survive this continual onslaught upon their characters. In an article printed in a current magazine some time ago, entitled **What It Means to Be a Chorus Girl'' are some starting confessions and revelations. The writer of the article is evidently a young woman who chose the stage as a profession with the idea of Uving on the stage, as she would in any other profession, an upright and moral life. The article is a pitiful portrayal of the trials and temptations and even sufferings of a girl who tried thus to do. She declares, **The musical opera has no reason for existence save its ability to please. It is from beginning to end an appeal to the senses, pureand simple No chorus girl who has the slightest pretentions to good looks need go looking for temptation; it is waiting for her at every turn, and the wonder is not that so many take the primrose path, but that there are any — and there are a few, God be praised I — ^who have courage to fight their way along the 36 Across the Dead Line of Amusements straight and narrow road/' She recites a tale of the persecution she received at the hands of the business manager, who repeatedly tried to force her out of the company because she resist- ed his persistent and unwelcome attentions. She says that the experience was nerve-racking, as she was continually singled out for his ridi- cule and abuse. With his bitter, sarcastic tongue and almost infernal ingenuity he vented his anger upon a girl who was simply trying to maintain her virtue and honor. She declares that even in New York at the rehearsals, the girls were compelled to change their costumes on the stage without a screen and without a warning to the men to keep away from that part of the stage, and when the stage hands and scene shifters were wandering around. She says : **Most of the girls, hardened, perhaps, by other experiences in previous seasons, treated the matter as a joke. There were a few of us who felt differently, and we made a human screen of ourselves, in turn shielding each other. ' ' The familiarity of which this poor girl com- plains, is simply the logic of the familiarity and free-and-easy life that is demanded by the very plays themselves. Nor is this all. She con- tinues, ''After a show, we had literally to fight our way through a mob of young men waiting The Tragedy of the Theatre 37 for a chance to get on speaking terms with us, and many had their automobiles waiting to take the girls out motoring who were willing to go. ' ' She declares that even the hotel clerks connived with these lecherous men by pointing out the best-looking girls, telling them their names and the numbers of their rooms. * * I have slept again and again in hotels where I had to barricade the door by pushing the bureau against it and piling my wash-stand on top of that, and even then I was actually afraid to go to sleep. Never for once were we allowed to forget our sex. There have been times when the thought of my womanhood has filled me with shame and loath- ing, as behind the smiling masks of the men who approached me I saw the bared fangs of the wolf. I am a young girl and already feel like an old, old woman ; cynical, world-weary, I have been robbed of my youth and freshness, stripped of every illusion. But for the girls who are planning to go into chorus work, I say with all the fervor I can command : Stop and think, and ask yourself as I did not. Is it worth while! Believe me, it is not, in any single, solitary, sense/' Is it any wonder, if what this young woman says is true, that so many, many ac- tresses go astray! In another magazine, one who signs herself *'An Actress" frankly confesses that it is next to impossible for a woman to attain success on 38 Across the Dead Line of Amusements the stage without paying a heavy price, — ^*' pro- motion, more often than not, being at the cost of all that a trne woman holds most dear/* Clara Morris, once the greatest of emotional actresses, recently wrote, **A Plain Talk to the Stage-struck Girl,'* warning against the stage life. **I will admit,*' she says, '*that there are many more temptations peculiar to the profes- sion of acting than in other female pursuits. ** Perhaps there is one among you to whom the dingy, half light of the theatre is dearer than the God-given radiance of the sunlight. K the burnt-out air, with its indescribable odors, seemingly composed of several parts of cellar mold, with a great many parts of dry, unsunned dust, the whole veined through with small streaks of escaped illuminating gas — ^if this heavy, lifeless air is more welcome to your nos- trils than could be the clover-sweetened breath of green pastures I If that great, black gulf yawning beyond the half -extinguished footlights makes your heart leap up at your throat! If, without noting the quality or length of your part, the plain, bold fact of acting something thrills you with a nameless joy ! If the rattle- te-bang of the ill-treated old overture dances through your blood, and the rolling up of the curtain is to you the magic blossoming of a mighty flower — if these are things you feel, your The Tragedy of the Theatre 39 fate is sealed. Pray for Heaven's help to sus- tain and protect you I ' * In commenting upon the **Talk,*' Mary An- derson, the actress, said, * * I trust this will help to stem the tide of girls who so blindly rush into a profession of which they are ignorant, for which they are unfitted and in which dangers unnumbered lurk on all sides. If with Clara Morris^ powers and charm so much had to be suffered, what is — ^what must be — ^the lot of so many mediocrities who pass through the same fire with no reward in the end ? ' ' It requires a sterling character and unusual strength of will to remain virtuous and pure for long under these trying circumstances, and un- der such fierce temptations. If the amusement of the theatre-goer is thus purchased, it is certainly at a dear price. The price of the finest box is not only the price of the pleasure purchased, but frequently the price of immortal souls. A second harmful effect is the Assimilation of the Characters Played and the Consequent De- moralization of One's Own Character. The un- derlying principle of perfect acting is the ability of the actor and actress to take themselves out of themselves and put themselves over into the characters they are portraying. The actor must so study and master the part that he re-lives it as far a? it lies within his power. For instance, 40 Across the Dead Line of Amusements to take the part of lago in Shakespeare's ** Othello/' the actor must think as a villain, talk as a villain, act as a villain, and in every way seek for the time being to be a villain. The more perfect the villain, the more perfect the achievement of dramatic art. Or, if the actress is taking the part of Car- men, in the play of that name, she must 6e a Carmen. Now Carmen is nothing more nor less than a prostitute. Hence, the actress, if she would perfectly represent this character, must think as a harlot, talk as a harlot, act as a har- lot, and for the time being, fee a harlot. It is a law of our lives that we become more and more like the thing we strive to be. Of course, there is this redeeming side, — that many good characters are portrayed. But when these players play alternately an^ interchangeably the good and the evil characters their lives be- come surfeited with a mixture of the good and the evil. These impressions of good and evil are more or less indelibly stamped not only upon the mind, but upon the imagination and upon the very fibres of the soul. The conse- quence is, that the actors, dominated thus by the characters in which they so much live, are bound to become unstable in character, lacking in that which makes up the strength of the moral life. The late Miss Georgia Cayvan in an address delivered at the period of her highest succegp The Tragedy of the Theatre 41 said with reference to stage morals and ac- tresses : * * The question of stage morality — that is an incubus which has clung to the drama for many years, but the nineteenth century has luck- ily dissipated the clouds af mystery and doubt that surrounded the player, and the stage has never before numbered so many worthy women as to-day. The stage itself is purer and nobler, but the publicity of its life is its stumbling block. **It might seem pertinent to explain some of the influences that prevent an actress from being exactly like other women. Does it seem possible for a woman who has to simulate a varied assortment of feeling every night to be like the woman whose every emotion is siQcere and natural? A woman of the stage must lay bare her heart and soul before the public in order to present in perfection some type of woman. The artificial is always dangerous to character, whether it is the artificial in society or the artificial on the stage. It is almost men- acing to moral perception, to bring the most sacred impulses of womanhood down to the level of the commonplace by constant draft upon them. In every other profession a woman may keep inviolate the holy of holies of her individu- ality. In this alone is the veil rent, and a sacri- ficial flame upon her altar is lighted for the en- tertainment of the public. They little realize what it costs heff 42 Across the Dead Line of Amusements * * There is an old story of a dancer who wore about her neck a precious chain of pearls as she came before the king ; in the midst of the dance the chain parted, and the pearls were scattered beneath her flying feet. How was she to step the measures so gaily that the king should never know her care, nor the handsome courtiers smil- ing lightly down, nor the gentle ladies looking on in languid grace, and yet never crush a single snow-white pearl, while the cymbals clashed and the wild, glad music sounded madder and mer- rier, and the witchery of the dance dulled her fear and deadened her caution? The excep- tional woman of exceptional breeding may, when the court pageant has passed, count her pearl chain and find it all complete, even as those which home-guarded women wear so proudly. Will you remember what it costs? Will you think of the dancer — a moment of f or- getfulness, a careless step! Will you help us by understanding us — ^help us with your sym- pathy, your influence — ^lest we crush our pearls ? ^ * Her words are a noble woman's plea, and re- veal the trying, perilous life of the worthy ac- tress. Only a little while after this a jealous woman stepped upon this actress* pearls and crushed them in a most cruel way that sent her to an untimely grave. Without question, there have been and are The Tragedy of the Theatre 43 eminent actors and actresses who have lived worthy and commendable lives. They have suc- ceeded in spite of their profession, and have re- versed all the psychological laws, for this law of perfect acting is the identical law for the cul- tnring of Christian character. Panl says, **We all with open face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of God, are changed from character to character even as by the Lord, the Spirit.'^ In other words, as we study the spirit of Jesus, talk the words of Jesus, do the works of Jesus, and seek to re-live the life of Jesus, — ^by thus medi- tating, contemplating, and absorbing, as it were. His Spirit life, we are actually changed, degree by degree, in our own dharacters. We become more and more like Him as we grow older and older in the Christian way. That psychological suggestions and their re- peated impressions upon the players have actu- ally produced results accordingly, is beyond question. For instance, a play entitled **The Fourth Estate * * was given in Chicago. One of the actors, who took the part of the ** melancholy poet-reporter, * * committed suicide. In his lines describing the suicidal death of a young woman in the lower world, he had had to say over and over again, **She destroyed herself utterly. '^ His friends declare that, as eight and ten times a week the young reporter told of the young woman's suicide which to him seemed so tragic 44 Across the Dead Line of Amnsements but which to his managing editor seemed so trivial, it preyed upon his mind and produced the psychological impression of suicide. It is also said that in the years since the Pas- sion Play of Oberammergau has been played, at least two of the men who have taken the part of Judas have committed suicide. The man who played it in 1910 once was so swayed by the frenzy of his part that he actually threw the rope over the stage tree and was strangling when the curtain was lowered and he was released. These illustrations show the psychological ef- fect of their art upon the players. These are extreme and exceptional cases so far as their outward tragic results are concerned. But Sir Henry Irving is said to have committed at least fifteen thousand murders on the stage; Mr. Chas. Wyndham has been divorced from twenty- eight hundred wives ; Miss Ada Cavendish has been foully betrayed fifty-six hundred times; and every other actor and actress has committed similar mental, moral, and physical acts in the mimic world, and these facts suggest that the psychological impressions received must .affect their characters. While it is true that there are some plays that cannot be subjected to all of these criticiamSj the vast majority of plays are indictable. The Tragedy of the Theatre 45 ^Analysis of the Average Drama Some years ago Dr. James Buckley, editor of the Christian Advocate, made a minute study of more than sixty plays of the New York stage, covering a period of more than three years. He analyzed them one after another, describing their plots, the whole proving a terrible indict- ment of the slush and slime put forth as moral teaching and for the amusement of the crowd. The following conclusions fairly apply to pres- ent-day plays : (1) Christian morals are not accepted as the rule of morals, (2) True religion is never praised, but usual- ly ridiculed, (3) Wickedness is made to give amusement. Crimes that would call down the wrath of God upon the perpetrators are sys- tematically made to provoke laughter, (4) Oaths and profane expressions abound, (5) Where there is a moral it is usually dis- posed of before the fifth act. Dr. Buckley adds : **If language which would not be tolerated by respectable people and would excite indignation if addressed to the most uncultivated servant girl by an ordinary young man, and prof aneness which would brand him who used it as irreligious, are improper amusements, then at least fifty of these plays 46 Across the Dead Line of Amusements are to be condemned. Of the other ten (with the exception of three or fonr) those which are morally unobjectionable are of a comparatively low order of execution. * * This condemnation applies not only to the melodrama and to the tragedy type, but also to a large number of dramatic operas. Here are a few of the contents of dramatic or grand operas as characterized by Mr. Bouri- cault, a play writer. The beautiful music and the foreign language in which the librettos are sung are the only things that have kept them from being driven from the stage. ** Norma *^ is a vestal priestess who has been seduced. She discovers her paramour in an attempt to seduce her friend, another vestal priestess, and in despair contem- plates the murder of her bastard children. ''Don Giovanni'^ is the proverbial hero whose career represents the romance of successful adultery and debauch. * * Eigoletto ' * exhibits the agony of a father obliged to witness the prostitution of his own child. **La Traviata*' (the favorite) is the progress of a transcendental harlot, who is the king's mistress. **Lucretia Borgia'* is the history of adultery not unassociated with incest. The Tragedy of the Theatre 47' ** Faust" is the most specious apology for seduction ending with the apotheosis of crime, Margaret, who murders her mother and illegitimate child, is carried to heaven by angels. We may add to his list ^'Salome," which to use the words of a dramatic critic, **was, as we now know, a deliberately planned effort of a degenerate poet to evoke a series of beautiful and perverse images. To attain this end the author did not hesitate to pervert Scripture or to im- prove on history." It is one of the most shocking and daring exhibitions of un- bridled lust ever put on the stage. It is most grossly sacrilegious and almost fiend- ishly so. How any one can enjoy such ex- hibitions of moral depravity and sexual perversion under the guise of art passes comprehension. That the theatre is continually open to criti- cism of this kind will appear to any one who watches the comments of the various dramatic critics appearing frequently in the metropolitan dailies. Neither time nor space can be devoted to the mass of such criticism against so many present-day plays. But here are two illustra- tions, one of a popular play acted by one of the greatest actresses in the world. The dramatic 48 Across the Dead Line of Amusements critic says concerning the confession that the heroine (a wronged girl) makes to her lover : ^^The stage was bathed in darkness as she related the details and out of consideration for the audience the house lights were turned out, too, so that the blushes of the audience would not be visible during the recital. * * The other concerns Mme. Bernhardt, doubt- less the greatest living actress, who time and again has visited this country and played in every part of the United States. Mr. William Winter, one of the foremost dramatic critics, said of her acting: **No spectator was ever benefited, cheered, encouraged, ennobled, in- structed, or even rationally entertained by the prospects of these embodiments (characters) or any one of them, and it is beyond dispute that the exhibitions of them have exerted a deplor- able Influence. * * This statement made with reference to the representative ** embodiments * * played by this actress tiirough the years, is most amazing, coming as it does from such a source. He con- tinues, ** These embodiments of her acting are ability to show a woman who seeks to cause physical infatuation and who generally can suc- ceed in doing so; a woman in whom vanity, cruelty, selfishness, and animal propensities are supreme; a woman of formidable, sometimes dangerous, sometimes terrible, mental force. The Tragedy of the Theatre 49 The woman of intrmsic grandeur, — ^the woman essentially noble, — she has never succeeded in portraying. She has never truthfully depicted a woman who truly loves.*' He concludes, **When the Great Prompter strikes the bell for the last curtain, she will pass and be thought of no more, except as a conspicuous example of ec- centric character and brilliant ability. The laurel that is rooted in a bed of horrors soon withers and dies.*' Such is the estimate of this dean of dramatic critics of the life work of the greatest living actress. A dramatic critic in a Chicago paper said con- cerning the plays then on the Chicago stage, that it was unsafe for a man to take a woman to see them unless he was very well acquainted with her, or wanted to subject her to mortifying embarrassment. I have not meant to condemn every play in this indictment. There are undoubtedly some plays which are clean and wholesome, but, alas I they are lamentably few. But even concerning the so-called **good plays,** some earnest words need be said. ''Good Plays'' It is incumbent upon advocates of the theatre to define what they mean by **good plays.** Eip Van Winkle — as played by the foremost American actor, the late Joe Jefferson, was 50 ^ Across the Dead Line of Amusements such a play. No less a man than Opie Bead, the author, said concerning this play, **It has been above criticism because it has been re- garded as the Monroe Doctrine of the drama and must not be tampered with, and in sacred- ness second only to Uncle Tom's Cabin. It is a most genial and whimsical drunken joke. In every great work of art there is a moral and a lesson, deep and soul-strengthening. In *Eip Van Winkle' there is no lesson. Well, yes, — ^it teaches us that the humorous drunkard can never be reformed, that the scold becomes gentle when she marries a brute.'' Several so-called **good plays" have enjoyed exceptional popularity. One of these, **The Passing of the Third Floor Back," was ac- claimed by every one as a drama of great moral import and spiritual regeneration. A dramatic critic, writing for one of the current magazines, said : * * This play is almost as much a travesty as an allegory to those who have labored toil- fully to raise their fallen brothers and sisters. It is a travesty because in common with so much of the easy optimism of the day, the New Thought, the New Psychology, the New Law of Suggestion, or whatever it is called, it ignores the practical basis of human struggle and hu- man will in every true and lasting reformation, and sends away the beholder with a pleasant feeling that all that is demanded to set the The Tragedy of the Theatre 51 world aright are a few deep thoughts and a call to our better natures. The play represents a benign spirit, pre- sumably an incarnation of the Christ spirit, as coming to a boarding-house filled with lying, bickering, cheating, unhappy beings and, by calling to their better natures, reform- ing them one and all/' They went down before the ** glance of his eye and the soft boom of his voice,** it is said, **like ninepins in an alley, and as each sinner went down, as each reformation was accomplished, all the women in the audience wepf **What," continues the writer, **in actual life would be the process of reclaiming them? It would be a battle, a long- drawn battle. Unfortunately, in this world, men are not turned' from sinners to saints without a struggle, and usually a bitter struggle. They must confess, they must repent, but that is not enough, — they must be led up from one stage of understanding to another, slowly, patiently, probably with frequent backslidings. The play is immoral,** he resumes, ** because it makes spir- itual regeneration a matter of external and im- mediate success, a kind of hypnotic process, in- stead of an inward effect of will and moral sense; dangerous, because it permits an audi- ence to lapse back fifteen minutes later into ex- actly their former state. It inspires no real ethical purpose and no real thought because it 52 Across the Dead Line of Amusements is based by the dramatist on no real thought, though doubtless his purpose was sincere enough. It does not touch the real principle of moral reformation.** Similarly he analyses such plays as **The Easiest Way,'' **The Man from Home,'' ''The Fighting Hope," ''Mother," "The Whirl- wind," "The Great Divide," etc. "Such," he concludes,'* is the morality of the stage, because it is vastly easier in the drama to write what is momentarily effective than what is fundamen- tally true. "If the ethical problems of life were only so simply as that! But they are not. They are bitterly complex; they stem back into the past and forward into the future." His article is well named, "BAD MOEALS IN GOOD PLAYS." So I am unwilling to accept the words of the theatre advocate as to what are "good plays" until they have been subjected to such careful analysis. Opinions of Actors Many of the highest minded and sincerest of actors and actresses have felt quite the same way about the theatre. Edwin Booth said, "My knowledge of modem drama is so very meager that I never permit my wife and daughters to witness a play with- The Tragedy of the Theatre 53 out previously ascertaining its character. But while the theatre is permitted to be a mere shop for gain, open to every immoral huckster, there is no other way to discriminate between the pure and the base than through the experience of others. ' * Macready, the actor, said, * * None of my chil- dren with my consent shall ever enter a theatre or have any visiting connections with actors and actresses.^' (This statement has been disputed but never successfully denied.) A. M. Palmer, a successful theatre manager of the country, said, **The chief themes of the theatre are now, and ever have been, the pas- sions of men — ambition and jealousy leading to murder; anger leading to madness; and lust leading to adultery and death. * ' M. Dumas, the younger, a writer of licentious plays, said, **You do not take your daughter to see any play? You are right. Let me say once and for all, do not take your daughter to the theatre. It is not merely the work that is im- moral, it is the place. Whenever we paint men, there must be a grossness that cannot be placed before all eyes ; and wherever the theatre is ele- vated and loyal, it can live only by using the colors of truth. The theatre being the picture of the satire of the passions and social man- ners, it must forever be immoraL^' 54 Across the Dead Line of Amusements These are but samples of the feelings ex- pressed by them. Reforming the Theatre What about the possible reform of the theatre? I reply that people in the past have tried to reform the theatre and failed. Gar- rick, Hannah More, Macready, Henry Irving, Edwin Booth, Channing, Lyman Beecher, all tried it and failed. Theatres that have been erected for the purpose of purifying the drama and producing only wholesome and moral plays have degenerated and are now serving the pub- lic as all others. Each theatre in Philadelphia is said to have originated in a throe of reform. The latest and most striking illustration of this is the New Theatre in New York, costing a vast fortime, with the money donated by high- minded people. After running a little more than two years, it has been forced to abandon its place and submit to reorganization after a tremendous financial loss of $400,000. The ex- planation made by the press is to this effect: **The obstacles seemingly insuperable to the present projectors are the diflficulty of getting an adequate manager, the unavailability of com- petent actors, and the scarcity of suitable plays.*' Certainly three vital factors! The trouble with reforming the theatre is that at least three classes of people will have to be The Tragedy of the Theatre - 55 reformed. First of all, the public ; second, the actors and the actresses ; third, the theatre man- agers and stockholders. In regard to the public, a dramatic critic sum- ming up the New York theatre season of 1911- 12, says, **A look at our politics, our literature, our newspapers, our finance, our professions, even our *best' society, shows that the biggest successes are made by those who have been first to recognize that the American public doesn^t want to think, or really feel; it is pleased best and attracted most when it is merely tickled or excited for a little while in one way and left free to turn quickly to the next shallow sensation of the moment. Almost ex- actly one-third of the energies of the theatre in New York during the season just closing has been given over to musical shows. Few things in life call for less exertion of the thinking pow- ers, or for less accrued knowledge of any kind than does the enjoyment of the typical musical show. ' ' From the dramatic critic *s standpoint such is the character of the greatest theatre-going public. Eegarding this same American public, Olga Nethersole, the famous actress, who thoroughly knows her audiences through years of experi- ence, recently declared that the only kind of play which may hope to meet with success with 56 Across the Dead Lme of Amusements the English-speakiiig people at the present date is the play which is sufficiently indicated by call- ing it immoral. With respect to the managers and stockhold- erSy the critic continues, ^ ' The steady decline in the managerial standard is not likely to be check- ed so long as we have only theatrical specula- tors catering to a public crude in its tastes and putting sheer amusement ahead of everything , else in the theatre. From this point of view the failure of the New Theatre and the conse- quent discouragement of the moneyed element which alone could combat commercialism, was a greater blow to dramatic art in America than has been yet realized. ' ' Evidently the underlying motive of the theatre must be reformed if it ever proposes to be a moral educator. It has always been run purely for the benefit of the box office. Now, if money-making is the prime object, then only those plays can be staged which pro- duce dividends. Mixed motives in business as well as in individual characters spell moral fail- ure. The most scathing criticism that has ever been hurled at any church has been the charge that the minister's message was colored or suit- ed to please those who were the church's chief supporters. Nothing would so quickly paralyze the miaister's influence and destroy his useful- ness as such a proven charge. The Tragedy of the Theatre 57 The deepest motives of both manager and stockholders have influenced them to put upon the boards what will please this ** crude," amusement-loving public that does not want either **to think or feel/* but to be *Hickled and excited. ' ' Time and time again managers have declared that when they have attempted to put on good plays the people have not patronized them. A metropolitan manager wailed thus: ** How- ever beautiful his Shakespearean play may be in its pictures, and in its acting, however true to nature the drama of Pinero may be, and be it never so well acted, that ambitious manager is going to be bankrupt unless the public likes his offering. His good intention, his desires to ac- complish sometiiing really creditable in his pro- fession, wiU not fill his theatre once. Not a soul will buy a ticket in order to help along a man- ager who is setting his standards high and at variance with what the public thinks it wants at just that time. If he can ever be foolish enough to believe that his desires to attain to his ideal in his profession are going to bring him the aid and comfort of the theatre-going public, the probabilities are that he will not be able to pay his rent and will be dispossessed be- fore his first season is finished.** Then with respect to the actors and actresses. Thi9 same critic declares, '^Oiie discouraging 58 'Across the Dead Line of Amusements feature in evidence through the season is the continual decline in the quality of the work of the American actor. The control of the Amer- ican theatre is so much more commercial than artistic that the decline in the art of acting is naturally to be expected/* Even Mr. Belasco has been compelled to advertise in the daily papers inviting '^ young men with proper quali- fications and ordinary energy'* to become his students. There can be little doubt left that the stage is not attracting the right kind of ma- terial. The theatre can't go much further in the way of commercialization without abso- lutely destroying the art of acting. Eleanora Duse declared, ^^To save the theatre, the theatre must be destroyed; the actors and actresses must die of the plague. They make art impossible. ' ' Mr. Edward Gordon Craig, the son of Ellen Terry, in a book on '*The Art of the Theatre," pleading for a reform from an artistic stand- point, makes the same assertion. If this is true from an artistic standpoint, then what of the moral? "While avoiding that criticism which would seemingly condemn all actors and actresses, these statements from professional and other impartial critics would indicate that not the least reform demanded is among the profession. The decline of both art and morals has logically produced a similar decline among them. Good The Tragedy of the Theatre 59 players cannot long play bad plays without be- coming contaminated. And, again/ snch can- not be entrusted to teach morals to the public. Spurgeon once exclaimed, ''That must be a strange school of morals where the teachers never learn their own lessons.'* With reference, therefore, to the reform of the theatre, we have this situation : The theatre needs reforming. Attempts in the past and up to the present have failed. The failure is due to the dependence of the manager upon the patrons, the majority of whom demand the questionable play. The Christianas Attitude What, then, should be the attitude of the Christian to the theatre and the good play? Of course it is taken for granted he will not think of patronizing any other kind. Many conscientious people say, ' ' Can we not attend Shakespearean plays and others of like character f No better answer can be given than the following letter : Dear Friend: — I was one of your hearers when you preached to women on your first Sunday in Mobile. Tou mentioned a woman whose husband had been touched by attending a religious meeting and who asked her to accompany him the following night. She 60 Across the Dead Line of Amusements refused, saying she had asked some friends to her home to play cards. Yon no doubt recall the incident, I trembled for fear I should cry out that I was goill^ of just such a sin, and I dstermined to let you know of it and ask you to use my story as an emphasis to the one you told. When I was married, my husband was a clean man, a Y. M, 0. A. worker, a Sunday-school teacher, and an earnest church member. I was a member of the same church. I begged him to go to the theatre with me, but he insisted again and again that theatre-going was not conducive to Christian living. Finally I won, and we began taking in only Shakesperean plays, then others and others. Then my husband did not come home early in the evening to go out to the theatre or any- where else with me. He quit attending church, came home later and later, would be absent from home and his business for several days, telling me that he had been called to a neighboring city on business. I never had doubted him until a disclosure made it evident that he had been drinking heavily, had been in vile company and had spent the time of his absence in small bar-rooms in the suburbs of the city. Just before you came here we had a conversation in which he told me that theatre-going was the be- ginning of his trouble. He thought he could go to the theatre some, smoke a few cigars, and drink a little, until he came to the point where he had no taste for religious affairs, and went from bad to worse. I thank God that I had the courage to tell him I had long sinoe known I was 'wrong. He promised The Tragedy of the Theatre 61 to give up his evil habits and to lay to follow Christ I beUeve he has done so, for he was one of the most zealous personal workers during the evangelistic cam- paign. Out of the fulness of my glad heart I am writing to you to ask you to urge mothers and wives and young women to make no compromise with evil and to cling close to Christ, and to encourage by every means every good effort of a husband or a son in re- Hgious work. Through suffering my heart has been changed, and I trust my message to you may savie many of my sisters from a sin like mine. With my prayer for your work, A Penitent One. The eminent comedian, Mr. E. M. Holland, verified this very experience when he said to a friend of mine, **The theatre is moving down grade. When I have a night oflf, I go down to the Bowery (New York) and there I see people who used to come to see the Shakespearean plays ten or twelve years ago. They have gone steadily down the line. * * Somewhere imbedded in the heart of the theatre seems to be, in spite of all reformatory efforts, that which is not only not conducive to devotional and spiritual living, but a positive menace to it. Paul has given a fair and rational rule by 62 Across the Dead Line of Amusements which to settle this and every question of Chris- tian conduct. "Prove all things, Hold fast that which is good, Abstain from every appearance of eviL" THE CURSE OF CARDS I tremble to think of the mjriad Bumisters to vice and degra- dation, to dettraction of heart, soul, body and the health of coming generations who infest and infect our great cities; and at the coarse, garish, unlovely, ignoble, and often hateful char- acter of the chosen public amusements of a great class of our j^oung men. — Baldtoin Brovm, n The Curse of Cards GA^ should never be classified together ana then denounced together. All games are not harmful. Many are wholesome, helpful, and recreative. Certain ones, as base- ball, tennis, golf, bowling, etc., are pre-eminent in giving needed physical exercise and should be encouraged. Others are mentally stimulat- ing and afford splendid training to the intel- lectual faculties. Such games are checkers and chess. Still others train the eye, the muscle, and the nerve, like crokinole, billiards and pool. To denounce any of these in the same breath with cards is to show a lack of careful thought, and to do a great injustice to those who enjoy real recreative games. Games of Skill A cursory study of all games in which me- chanical devices are used will show that they are naturally divided into two classes, — games of skill and games of chance. Games of skill, roughly defined, are those which are won by the accuracy of the trained eye, the trained muscle, the intellectual judg- 65 66 Across the Dead Line of Amusements menty and the subsequent mastering through study and practice of the fundamental princi- ples of the game. Of course, any of these games may be misused. This goes without discussion, but my contention is that fundamentally they are right and proper. Some declare that billiards and pool are fully as dangerous to morals as cards. Doubtless this has been true, but the dangers are not to be sought in the same direction as in cards. They are harmful for several reasons. First of all, they are expensive games to own and maintain; second, they are restricted accordingly to well- to-do homes and to public places. In the past, these places have been mostly saloons and pub- lic parlors, or club-rooms of questionable re- sort. In the third place, they are run for reve- nue only. Hence the proprietor is not usually particular who his patrons are if they have the money to spend. As a result, these places be- come loafing places where good young men mingle with evil young men, idle their time, waste their money, listen to foul and obscene language, play to see who will pay for the game, and in other ways demoralize themselves. As for the two games, they are founded upon laws of straight lines and angles, as unchange- able as the laws of Euclid. But for the above reasons, one cannot approve of the association and manner of the games as played to-day. The The Curse of Cards 67 experiment of some Young Men's Christian As- sociations, notwithstanding the sincerity of the attempt to cleanse and sterilize the games, seems yet an experiment. Games of Chance Games of chance, on the other hand, have most of the elements of games of skill plus the element of chance, without which they would not be games. It is solely this element of chance that makes these games morally, mentally, and spiritually dangerous. And it is upon this fact that I base my argument against them. To games of chance belong all card games, all dice games, and aU domino games. Of these, however, the euchre deck is the most baneful in its influence. This is due to the innumerable combinations of odds of chance which the deck offers. While flinch, flags, authors, and many other card games belong to the same family, the odds of chance are so much attenuated, like homeopathic medicine, that they are but vague- ly perceptible. There is this also to be said in their favor, that some have an intellectual side, which adds something of culture to them. Dom- inoes are also much attenuated. I do not mean by this to condone them, but simply to discrim- inate even between Games of Chance. 68 Across the Dead Line of Amusements The Lost Art of Conversation It seems a sad commentary upon our modem social life that socially inclined people have de- teriorated to that level that they cannot amuse themselves without resorting to one of the three so-called popular amusements. I say *^ deteri- orated ' * advisedly, for the mania for card-play- ing is not a mark of culture, refinement, nor even of average intellectual attainments. Whether card-playing is the cause, or the result, it is a recognized fact that the fine art of con- versation through which people may sharpen their wits and develop their brain power, as well as increase their range of knowledge, has al- most disappeared. Dr. Leslie W. Sprague, lec- turer of the Brooklyn Ethical Society, was quoted recently as saying: *'It is the deck of cards that has made conversation the dead art in America.** Francis Browne, editor of the ' ' Dial, ' ' added, ' ' There is not a doubt of it. We look in vain for any such charm and stimulation as men like Dr. Johnson, for instance, could im- part to their talk. Our comment on most sub- jects is limited to a few words. We look askance on the prospect of a long talk. We dive to the point in one sentence, and then we have said all we have to say. The same is true of letter- writing as an art. Where will you find now-a- days any such long, rambling, delightful letters The Curse of Cards 69 as were indited with such pleasure a century or two ago'?'* To entertain at cards is the cheapest and easi- est way to spend an evening. All that need be prepared are the card decks, the tables, and the refreshments. After greeting her guests any hostess could easily retire to her room, set the alarm, sleep from eight to midnight, then come down and serve the refreshments. There is little probability that she would have been missed at all, for from the time the guests began their playing, until they finished, there would not have been an intelligent idea expressed (ex- cept about the game) all the long evening. One is not permitted to talk, for it will spoil the game. The less disposed one is to talk, the less distracting will be his ideas to others, and the more popular he will be. It is, therefore, no mark of refinement nor culture nor any special recommendation of modern society, that it has gone card crazy. It indicates a distinct de- terioration of grey matter. Expert card-play- ing as the passport to the exclusive set, is a sorry reflection upon boasted and much coveted society. The Inter-relations of Intellect, Conscience and Will Three things upon which every man depends for his success in life are basal to all action : the 70 Across the Dead Line of Amusements intellect, the conscience, and the will, — or the attributes of the rational, the moral, and the volitional man. These three, all and always, operate conjunctively. In the normal man^ they never act separately. They are more closely adjusted than ball and socket joints. They are the trinity that control and direct the conduct of life. They pass like Supreme Court judges upon all questions. They must always, like judges, have the freest range for action, and should never be repressed. Whenever one is destroyed, the real self-hood is demoralized. For instance, whenever intellect is subtracted there is idiocy or insanity ; whenever conscience is subtracted there is moral degeneracy and vil- lainy; and whenever will is subtracted the life is rudderless and lacks direction. In the degree that any one of these is hobbled or impaired in its action, to that degree the balance, or poise, of life, is disturbed and becomes abnormal. Every act of our lives must be submitted to these three psychological forces. Art, science, commerce, religion, are regions over which these faculties can and should preside. But there is one realm over which they cannot preside, where they become instantly ineffective and crippled, and that is the realm of chance. Here they lose their prestige and power. This it is that makes cards and dice so very dangerous to the players. The Curse of Cards 71 In every game of cards, the element of chance exists. It cannot be eliminated. The funda- mental difference between the checker game and the card game is here disclosed. If you put the games side by side ready for playing, you •will note that in the checker game all the fac- tors of the game are spread out before both players, and upon them all their powers of in- tellect, conscience, and will can be brought to bear. Each player sees exactly the position of his opponent's disks and can marshal his own accordingly. To win, he must know the ^* moves,'* or the value obtained through the relative positions of the disks. On the other hand, in the card game, where four are playing, besides the cards to be drawn from the rest of the deck, each player is dealt a hand. Clearly here are five factors in the game, but each player sees only his own hand. He is in possession of only one-fifth of the factors of the game which are essential to winning. His skill in the card game must differ from that in playing checkers, where everything is visible. In the card game, it consists in acquiring this hidden four-fifths knowledge, by the lever of the one-fifth. This produces the element of hazard, or chance, be- cause neither the intellect, conscience, nor will can be brought to bear upon the unknown by the laws upon which they normally and necessarily 72 Across the Dead Line of Amnsements proceed. It is like tying np an arm and then expecting it to work successfully. The Destructive Element of Chance To further illustrate : The player looks care- fully over his hand and decides that one card is the best to play. Each of these faculties, in- tellect, conscience, and will, acting together, passes upon the play. But behold I when each opponent has played his hand, the player finds he has been mistaken. At the second play, the intellect is consulted, but is at once confused, inasmuch as, having used its best judgment and lost, it can but hesitatingly decide on the next card to be played. What intellect cannot posi- tively determine, conscience cannot morally es- timate, and in consequence, wUl hesitates to act. After weighing the next play in the light of the previous failure, intellect chooses again. This time when each has played, behold I the trick is won. The third play is on. Again must intel- lect pass upon the card. The player has now one trick lost, one won, and little to guide from the two previous plays as to the third. Again there is confusion. Intellect says to conscience, **What shall I playf Conscience says, **That^s your task to decide. I will pass upon the morals of it, after you hand your opinion over to me.*' Will says, "When you and con- science have passed upon the rational and The Curse of Cards 73 moral, I will signal brain and muscle to play it. * ' Intellect keeps hesitating by saying, "I wish I knew what cards the other players have. I wish I knew which card to play. I want to win. If I knew, I could J' But it cannot know certainly. Accordingly, all three are baffled and balked. After using their best skill they are again com- pelled to hazard the desired results. Thus they are pitched and tossed, backward and forward, between the racquets of fainting loss and hoped- for gain, like a tennis ball or like a person tossed in a blanket, equilibrium lost, now heels, now head in the air, — ^now an intellectual, now a moral sprawl, the utmost confusion of the whole psychological nature. Or, to change the figure, all three are put on the stretch, like a rubber band pulled to the breaking point. The visible effect shows itself in the growing inter- est and intense excitement of the game. Every nerve is on edge, the breath comes short and fast, the blood rushes to the brain, the temper is frequently heated and unloosed; the desire to win becomes a passion; conscience becomes feverish; barriers go down; advantage is fre- quently taken; dishonesty is committed; and there ensues a general psychological riot. There has really happened to the mental powers ex- actly what happens to the physical when alco- hol is taken into the system. The reigning pow- ers are gradually deteriorated, — at first by 74 Across the Dead Line of Amusements mild stimulation, then by intoxication, finally, if long indulged, by inebriation. Intellect, conscience, and will reel and totter under the drugging of chance and remain so untU the stimulation is over, and they sober up like a drunken man. But the appetite is created and soon asserts itself, demanding, as alcohol, an- other spree. This abnormal stimulation accounts for the card craze of modem society. It is the in^di- ous charm of the serpent chance, as it wraps its coils about the intellectual, moral, and volitional life, leashing them, then strangling the soul and spirit, injecting into the life a poison deadlier than that of the rattlesnake, disguising it in the sweet nectar of desire to win as alcohol hides in the flavor of the liquors. The Effect Upon the Temper The effect upon the temper is illustrated by an incident told by Mr. Nolan Eice Best, editor of The Continent. He says : "In the delightful suburban home of a Chi- cago judge a group of neighbors dropped in one evening for an informal calL A vivacious young woman at once proposed a game of cards. " *Come, judge,* she coaxed gaily, *get a deck of cards and play a game with us to pass th9 ©vemng.' The Curse of Cards 75 " * Indeed, I won't,' promptly responded the jurist. ** * Judge, are you such an old fogy that you won't play cards!' ** 'No, I'm not an old fogy.' ** 'You think cards are wicked, then, do you?' '''Not at all.' " 'Why won't you play, then!' " 'Well,' blurted out the judge, crowded into a comer, 'I've watched you card players a long while, and I've never yet aeen a hunch of play- ers that could get through a whole game without losing their tempers. There's always somebody complaining of the way somebody else has play- ed, even in the most friendly company. I won 't bother with anything that spoils one's temper so.' a i But, judge,' still coaxed the young woman, 'you know we are your guests and you ought to play a game with us just because we want you to.' " 'Yes, you're my guests,' echoed the judge, his spirit rising notably higher; * you 're my guests, and that's the reason why you ought to think of my preference for spending my even- ings. Why shouldn't you do what I want to do — sit and talk of something sensible ? ' " 'There's just one reason why you play cards, and that's because you are so empty- headed that you can't talk. You don't know 76 Across the Dead Line of Amusements enongh to spend an evening in any kind of con- versation, and so you have to kill time finger- ing over those useless cards. Ton can do as you please. I 'm going to the library to read. ' ** Afterward the judge explained why he fore- swore cards : " *I never played much, and was always poor at the business. One evening, however, I sat down at home with my wife, my son, and a young lady neighbor for a game of whist. " 'Pretty soon I made some misplay. My son groaned, "0 father, that was wretched I'' I turned toward the young woman. Her face was white with anger. ti i it ^^g tJj^^ g^^jjj g^ y^jy jj^ J pj^y | M J aSfccd. " * **It was inexcusable!'' she almost hissed. * * * I laid down my cards. * ' Here, ' ' I said, ^ ' is where I quit. If this paltry good-for-nothing game can raise such a tempest as this over a blunder that I'm likely to make at any time, I'm never going to touch it again. I know I can't play very well, and I'm not going to put myself in a position to be scorned any more like this for an ignorance that isn 't worth while curing. " ' " Demoralization of Honor and Honesty A magazine article gives a deplorable picture of the dissipation which is going through society and the church like a virulent, deadly epidemic. ** Physicians deplore the craze, claiming that it The Curse of Cards 77 burdens their hands with hysterical women. Captains of industry say that it is weakening the stamina of the young men of the country who need their strength for work. It is cer- tainly draining the nerves, the purses, and the characters of those who heretofore made up in our land a sane, substantial society. The bars are down, and the social climber can cast aside church and charity, — the open gate of so- ciety. Let her hire a professional teacher and play bridge. The game will ruin her temper, and probably bring on the habit of heavy drink- ing, but if she can play bridge, she will be one of society's favorites. If bridge, in its present hysterical form, does not really impair a sturdy character, it does encourage the development of every latent trait. It may not create depravity, but it surely lifts the veil from it. * * This is the tragedy of what has been consid- ered a pleasant evening diversion. It has in- vaded both home and church, and is undermin- ing both health and morals. Some of the most astonishing things have happened among wom- en who have been inveigled into playing for money, even to the disruptions of intimate friendships without number, and the demorali- zation of homes, such is the frenzy that has grown up among the devotees of society. In reply to the request of the editor of a cer- tain magazine that women should ifive their 78 Across the Dead Line of Amusements idea of the heroine 's conduct in a story relating to cards, a large number of card players re- sponded. Their replies throw a flood of light upon the present day card craze, and are espe- cially valuable because they give the standpoint of those who know the inside. Their own in- crimination of themselves is startling. One says: *'I am a bridge player and a straight one, and many times I have fairly writhed over the lax ideas some women have in regard to cards. I have seen women who would not deliberately misdeal, convey information by nods, shrugs, or facial contortions, that were as surely cheating as any gambler 's methods. ' ' A second says: *' Surely only the highest standard of morals should prevail in any club or party of women. Where can we expect vir- tue and fine example if not from our mothers and daughters. Bridge whist is now played to excess, with shocking and most demoralizing consequences. ^ * Another said : * *I think there is usually cheat- ing at a card party. Men who would not cheat when playing with other men do not take a ladies' game seriously enough to refrain from dishonesty. Some women do not cultivate the habit of sincerity in anything, and play to win. To others the prize is too much of a tempta- tion.'' A fourth wrote: **My only reason, or chief The Curse of Cards 79 reason, for not liking to play for prizes is that it induces cheating. There are certain people whom you must meet socially so long as they are recognized by your associates, whether they cheat at a social game of cards or not. I should as soon condone stealing — and there you are I It is hard to know what to do. ' ' Brazen Cheating The next indictment shows to what length even women will go in order to win. It outdoes the wiliest and most unprincipled g:ambler: ' * Some three or four years ago, I played my last game of bridge with women. And the rea- sons for stopping were more queer than those of ^ inasmuch as the culprit in that case saw her own guilt — (as witness her face the color of mahogany I) ; but in the three cases I am about to mention no woman admitted any- thing irregular, and a score to whom I have since spoken observed innocently that they saw nothing wrong in that — * nothing but a game anyway I ' * * The first instance was brought to my notice by a friend of mine, who played in a public tour- nament in New York some years ago. Some hundreds of women were playing, and the prizes were very valuable. These were to be given to the highest scorers ; that is, if the four women at any iable had the highest scores, the fact or 80 Across the Dead Line of Amusements their all being together made no difference—* they got the best prizes. The players pivoted, but did not change tables. When my friend sat down, one of her opponents remarked casually, *Eemember, everything's doubled.* * Every- thing's doubled, — ^how do you meant' she said. *Why,' said all three impatiently, *we count hearts 16, diamonds 12, etc., just to bring up the score.' * Whether the cards are there or not!' said my astonished friend. * Certainly, that's fair ; you lose twice as much, or you gain twice as much. Lots of us do it at these affairs.' *And suppose the leader really has doubling cards t ' * Then that doubles it again I ' * * My friend, a little dazed, played through the afternoon, but was determined that at the end of the game, she, at least, would not compete for prizes under those conditions. Not the least extraordinary phase of it, however, was the fact that although doubled, all their scores were far below the winners ! Perhaps the winners quad- rupled it ! * * I watched a game one day, not long ago, also for very beautiful prizes, but in a private house. The four women I watched were at their table some half hour before the other guests (forty in all) were ready to begin, so they played a rub- ber to pass ihe time, the winners of which scored six hundred points (auction bridge). When the hostess gave the signal to commence, one of The Curse of Cards 81 these winners said regretfully, * * Oh, I hate not to count those points; I'll tell you what well do," she said eagerly, **we'll all take six hun- dred points, that'll be fair I" This was done, and the points scored on the four fresh cards, and two of these women carried home prizes. **The third instance was a case of two inti- mate friends, Mrs. A. and Mrs. B., who found themselves opponents at the end of an after- noon's play. Mrs. A. had a very high score, Mrs. B. a hopelessly low one. The latter, de- spairing of her one chance at a prize, deliberate- ly aided her friend's game, by doubling and making recklessly. Mrs. A. radiant with her prize, said gratefully to Mrs. B., *I owe you this, you duck I ' * I think you do, * said the other laughing, and quite openly. Enough has been said of women who play all day and who fight over tricks. * * Thus we trace the demoralization of char- acter through the assault of hazard, or chance, upon the moral and spiritual nature. Lying, deceiving, cheating, anger, hatred, and other vices, are the inevitable demoralizing results. In the New York Medical Journal, the editor writes this scathing indictment of cards from a purely medical standpoint: **It is reported that a certain prominent church body is about to relax its discipline to 82 Across the Dead Line of Amusements the extent of permitting to its adherents dancing and card-playing. ' ' "Card-playing is a pure and simple mental dissipation^ that grows upon the victim like all other dissipations, to the eventual exclusion of logical and close thinking. A valuable distrac- tion for the elderly* once a week, say if in- dulged in oftener, especially by the young, it exercises its narcotizing influence with irresisti- ble force. Skill counts for only three per cent, in even the most scientific of card games, much less in the popular gambling forms. The legend which attributes the invention of playing cards to the necessity for amusing a mad king of France possesses verisimilitude. Appealing primarily to the imperfectly balanced mind, they soon reduce that of a better quality to the same level. They are comparable in every way to the habit-forming drugs, and lead surely to the neglect of every sane and healthy amuse- ment, to say nothing of business or professional duties. We hope that any religious body which has the power will continue to enforce a regula- tion evidently based, years ago upon observa- tion of the stupefying effects of card-playing, effects which are identical with those of * play- ing the races, ^ a pastime which finally incurred *The editor's argument for card-playing upon the part of elderly people seems to be that elderly people are not required to do ''logical and close thinking/' so that the mild dissipa* tion can be indulged. The Curse of Cards 83 extinction at the hands of none too squeamish legislatures. ' ' The Stimulant of Chance To trace the history of card playing for the last few years is not a difficult task in the light of the above statements. The simpler games no longer satisfied, for the same reason that drink- ing does not usually stop with wine. With the use there was created an appetite which craved more and stronger stimulant. As the stimulat- ing alcohol in wine is found in larger per- centage in beer, in ale than in beer, in whiskey than in ale, in champagne than in whiskey, and in absinthe than in champagne, so the alcohol of chance has produced a craving for more al- cohol of chance. From the simpler card games of old maid, casino, muggins, to euchre, pro- gressive euchre, whist, bridge whist, and scien- tific whist, is the progress of feverish craving for more psychological stimulant. The havoc that is being wrought is alarming. One physician, viewing it purely from a phys- ical standpoint, says : *^ As a medical man, I am convinced that gambling at cards has had much to do with the increase of nervous breakdown among a certain class of women. ^ ' Scientific Whist Most Dangerous of All It is true that there are certain games, as scientific whist, that require more intelligence 84 Across the Dead Line of Amusements and skill than others. But the more of intelli* gence in proportion to chance, the more danger- ous the game. The greater the strain, or the more ^ ^ science ' * you put upon the intellect only to have it tripped by the element of chance, the more dire the results, just as the higher, the heavier, the stronger the building, the greater the catastrophe if it be toppled over ; the more violent the blow that chance strikes, the surer is the reaction and the reeling of the brain. As chance, even in these most intellectual games is ninety-seven per cent, of the whole, we get some idea of the terrific assault made upon the psychic nature. This explains the many sui- cides from the gambling tables of Monte Carlo. The brain gave way under the terrible strain, when chance at last swept away the last dollar. No Difference between Card-Playing and Gambling There is no essential difference between card- playing and gambling when reduced to this analysis. In the whist game played for money, which is legally considered gambling, there are the same odds of chance, and one proceeds in the identical way as in the whist game played for pleasure. The only difference is that in the gambling game a commercial value is placed upon the odds. The one set of people get their pleasure in playing in the consciousness of su« The Curse of C^rds 85 perior skill and chance, the other in superior skill, chance, and the stakes. Why Card Players Become Gamblers What produces the desire of the one company to play for money and thus become gamblers? Nothing in the world except that the stimulant of ability to win points, and the reputation of being expert players finally ceased to gratify. It is the most logical thing in the world that women have commercialized the odds by offer- ing prizes. Why not make more remunerative the odds that already existed in the social game! It is rather hard to declare tjiat some of the loveliest of women, among them even some church women, are in the eyes of the law (then certainly in the eyes of Christians and all moral people) nothing but gamblers. When men play for a jackpot of silver and women play for a silver creamer, there can be no difference in the world except in the shape of the silver I It was because the purely social game ceased to gratify that so many mothers and sisters have descend- ed morally to the plane of common gamblers. The Chicago pastor was within the bounds of law, ecclesiastical and state, when he notified the police lieutenant to send the patrol to a home where a club of his church women were playing for prizes* 86 Across the Dead Line of Amusements A grand jury^s report to Judge Harrison of Kentucky said: *'A pink tea where society plays progressive euchre and gives prizes to the winners has the same degrading influence as the gambling-house, where roulette and poker are the attraction, the difference being only one of degree. It matters very little whether the prize is a silver thimble or a silver dollar. Progressive euchre parties are made alluring with prizes, refreshments, and the knowledge that the local papers will print the names of guests and winners. All are common gamblers, and deserve to be fined. ' ' The court demanded that these euchre players be indicted under the anti-gambling laws and dealt with as criminals. The card-table has become one of the menaces of modern society. Quinn, the reformed gam- bler, could not have been far wrong when he declared : ' * The parlor card table is the kinder- garten to a gambler's hell." A boy must first learn to play cards before he is likely to be ad- mitted to a gambling hell. If your boy or mine should present himself there, the first question would be, ^ * Can you play cards ? " 1 hey have no time to teach a ^* greener," but he 3an go to a respectable parlor, even of some chu "ch mem- ber, where they will give him his primary les- sons and start him on the card highway back to the gambler's hell and ruin; so if I were com- pelled to choose, I would rather have a score The Curse of Cards 87 of gambling joints in the block where I live than one refined parlor of moral and religious people who play cards. The one will more sure- ly trap the boy than the twenty. An ex-saloon keeper said: '*I have been in the saloon business with a gambling room at- tached for the last four years, and I claim to know something about what I am now going to tell you. I do not believe that the gambling den is nearly so dangerous or does anything like the same amount of harm as the social card party in the home. '*In the gambling room, the windows are closed tight, the curtains are pulled down; everything is conducted secretly for fear of de- tection, and none but gamblers, as a rule, enter it, while in the parlor, all have access to the game. Children are permitted to watch it, young people are invited to partake in it. It is made attractive and alluring by giving prizes, serving refreshments and adding high social enjoyments. '^The saloon men and gamblers chuckle and smile when they read in the papers of the par- lor games given by the ladies, for they know that after a while these same young men will be- come the patrons of their business. I say, then, that the parlor game is the college where gam- blers are mad^ and educated. In the name of 88 Across the Dead Line of Amusements God, men, stop this business at your homes, bum up your decks, and wash your hands.*' The Danger of Home Card-Playing Yet some people ignorantly but honestly say that they teach their children to play cards at home so that when they grow older they will not want to go away and play them. Sam Jones used to say — ''You fools, you might as well say, 'I wiU give the little pigs swill and when they get to be hogs they won't like swill.' " They forget that they are creating an appetite in their children. Some day, if the appetite is indulged, their playing will be too tame and the chUdren wiU seek excitement among neigh- bors, and finally where the real experts are, where damnation awaits their souls. ''A game that is dangerous anywhere is not safe at home. ' ' Before me are the photographs of three beau- tiful boys, the sons of one mother, who adopted this very principle. They came from most ex- cellent stock; in fact, on the father's side they came from a Colonial line of ancestry, men of wealth as well as of letters, one beiag a man high in oflSce in the country, another being the founder of a famous university. The mother argued that by playing cards with her boys, they would not care to go elsewhere for amuse- ment j thus sjie w'puld avoid for them tJiQ evU The Curse of Cards 80 amusements of their town. For her ignorant but well-meaning folly this poor mother has lived long enough to see one of these boys sink lower and lower in the moral scale until, both a drunkard and gambler, he became a bar-tender and was even arrested for robbing a joint and strongly suspected of belonging to a gang of safe-blowers. His mother 's grief can easily be imagined by any mother heart. The second son was married and has a little family of chil- dren. He both drinks and gambles, and the poor mother's cry is: '^What will become of him and his little ones!'' The eldest son is a prosperous professional man, but he both drinks and gambles and was arrested and tried for murder. The trial is said to have been a dis- graceful one. The witnesses were keepers of joints and the lowest of the low. The mother said through her sobs: ''It is all the result of whiskey." In her intense suffering she cried out, ''Why is this! Did I not bring my boys up in the Sabbath-school! Have I not always fought against the unclean, the impure ! I have fought it all through my motherhood— all through my life — ^and now every child I have drinks, gambles, and is ungodly." When asked if she still advocated cards in her home (which preceded the whiskey), her expression was piti- ful to behold. "No! No!" she cried. "My piiTld has changed on manjr things. I have 90 Across the Dead Line of Amusements reaped what I sowed. I sowed cards and reaped gamblers. ' ' Cards, gambling, whiskey, mnrder, broken hearts, blasted lives, are the logical order and the steps to hell. Some years ago, a traveling man gave an ad- dress in a church in Chicago. He spoke of his travels through the State of New York and of another eastern trip that he contemplated. At the close, a lady came up and asked him if he expected to stop at Auburn. Eeplying that he did, she said, ''May I ask of you a favor? It almost breaks my heart to do so. I have a son in the Auburn prison and I wondered whether you would call upon him, take him a mother's love and my photograph, and perhaps speak to him about the Saviour. *' ** Certainly, ' ' he replied. **I shall be glad to do so. ' ' A few days later he received from her hand the package, while her trembling lips said, ** Thank you,** and her eyes swam with scald- ing tears. At the penitentiary waiting room, he met the convict boy. He introduced himself and then said, **My boy, I have brought your mother's love and this package from her/' Slowly the young convict untied it, and there beheld his mother's face. He looked at it intently for a few moments, and then said slowly, **Yes, that 's my mother all right. But, say, her hair is ^ayer than when I saw her last. I suppose The Curse of Cards 91 my actions have put the gray hairs there ; yes, she has more wrinkles and crows' feet than when I was last home. ' ' Then a sort of cynical smile came over his face as he said, ** Are you goiag back to Chicago soon?'' When the salesman replied in the af- firmative, he continued, '^Then take this photo back. Tell her I don't want it. I suppose you wonder why. Let me tell you. Drinking and gambling have put me here for fifteen years. But it was at my mother's table I took my first drink and it was in my mother 's parlor I played my first game of cards." Said Frank , a murderer in Sing Siag, to his spiritual adviser, just before he went to the electric chair, '*If it had not been for that hellish pack of cards, I would not have been here to-day. And the worst of it is that my mother, a Christian woman, taught me to play. ' ' Dr. T. DeWitt Talmage, in answer to the question of his idea of card-playing, replied, ^'Some young converts say to me, *Is it right to play cards? Is there any harm in a game of whist or euchre ? ' Cards in my mind are so as- sociated with the temporal and eternal damna- tion of splendid young men that I should no sooner say to my family, * Come, let us have a game of cards ' than I would go to the menagerie and say, *Come, let us have a game of rattle- snakes/ or into a cemetery, sitting down on a 92 Across the Dead Line of Amusements a marble slab, say to the grave-digger, ^Come, let us have a game of skulls.* How will you feel if, in the great day of Eternity when we are asked to give an account of our influence, some man shall say to you, *I was introduced to a game of chance at your house, and I went * on from that sport to something more exciting, and went on down until I lost my business, and lost my morals, and lost my soul, and these chains that you see on my wrist and my feet are the chains of a gamester's doom, and I am on my way down to a gambler 's hell ! ' Honey at the start — eternal catastrophe at the last. ' ' Dr. J. G. Holland wrote : * *I have all my days had a card-playing community open to my ob- servation, and I am yet to be made to believe that that which is the universal resort of the starved in soul and intellect, which has never in any way linked to itself tender, elevating, or beautiful associations, the tendency of which is to unduly absorb the attention from every weighty matter, can recommend itself to the favor of Christ's disciples. * * The presence of culture and genius may em- bellish, but can never dignify it. I have at this moment ringing in my ears the dying injunction of my father's early friend: 'Keep your son from cards. Over them I have murdered time and lost heaven. ' ' ' We are not surprised to find that seventy- The Curse of Cards 93 five per cent, of all the gamblers who were said to have been interviewed by the Civic League in Chicago during the World's Columbian Ex- position, declared that they started by parlor card-playing. Saved from the Thraldom, of Cards Those who have been saved from the thral- dom of cards are unanimous in their testimony against them. The words of Mrs. A. B. Sims, of Des Moines, Iowa, the champion woman whist player of the United States at the time of her conversion, are emphatic and sweeping. Mrs. Sims, in 1905, won the first prize for women at the annual tournament of the National Whist Association ; in 1906 she won the championship and became the holder of the loving cup valued at $100, and the Amsterdam trophy. This is her letter : Des Moines, Iowa, My Dear Dr. Stough : — You ask me wherein I consider cards to be harmful. I will endeavor to answer to the best of my ability. I think if ever any one was in a position to give a tangible answer, it is myself. The depth is fathomless, and I can never touch bottom regarding the harm, but I will go down as far as possible. I was rocked in a Christian cradle, and my mother was one of the most consistent Christians that ever lived. I myself was a consistent Christian for many years. Coming to the cily I became infatuated with 94 Across the Dead Line of Amusements society and then became a strong whist player. I soon had absolutely no time for Christian work. When I found myself drifting, drifting, with the tide, I would pick up the oars and try hard to paddle back up the stream, only to find myself drifting down again. I knew what it meant when I began to go so far away from Christ. I would try so hard to live more closely, but how could I? I remember once having thirteen nights and afternoons and dinner (engage- ments ahead, all for cards. Wednesday night came with the prayer-meeting, and a whist party and luncheon; then Saturday night a card club and dinner. I came home so tired at midnight as to be completely worn out, revelling in scientific and aris- tocratic gambling. I just could not go to the house of my Lord the next morning and commune with my Saviour. I was so heartsore that I would not throw what little energy I had left in God's face and call it worship. Thus I went on until cards completely dwarfed all religion in my soul. I firmly believe card-playing and dancing are two of the greatest evilS in all Christian civilization. If professed Christians would renounce cards, we would have no trouble in converting the world. My Bible teaches me: The fountain cannot send forth sweet and bitter waters — we cannot serve God and mammon. Playing for prizes is not a whit less gambling he- cause it is pursued in a Christian home and by reputa- ble Christians. Invitations to card parties where prizes are given are gambling devices in the strict interpretation of the Federal postal law. It is as The Curse of Cards 95 unlawful to send such invitations through the mails as to advance a lottery scheme. Reform the society gamblers of our churches first, then begin on the pro- fiessional gamblers. It is a fact beyond dispute that it is from the drawing-room card table that the gam- bling dens' recruits are drawn. The card craze, as it prevails among the women of this country, is the most serious competitor the church has to-day. I have letters from Canada, Mexico, and different parts of Europe, from many of the leading cities of the United States, declaring that church and society women have gone mad over bridge and othsr card games. It was when these messages began to pour in upon me after I renounced cards, that the hold which cards have taken on Christian women fully dawned upon me. Cordially yours, Mrs. a. B. Sims. How Card-Playing Destroys Spirituality Permit a few words to show how card-playing destroys spirituality in Christians and the de- sire to become Christians upon the part of un- believers. Again the reasons are hidden in the deadly factor of chance. Let us analyze the '^dwarfimg of all religion^' in the heart of this woman, of which she speaks so regretfully. God has commanded His children to trust the unknown in life to Him. That trust constitutes the life of faith, or the Christian life. When one plays cards, he hazards the unknown, or 96 Across the Dead Line of Amusements chances it, — ^the exact opposite of trast 1 When one thus hazards the unknown, the process tears down the very foundations of morality and spir- ituality, as well as of intellectuality. It de- stroys the very psychological processes by which the life of faith is developed. The Chris- tian rule is ** Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.^^ (Eom. 14:23). Therefore, '* Whatsoever is of hazard, or chance, is sin.*^ A life of unbelief is a hazard, or gamble, from start to finish. It is easy to see how this woman was caught on the one side by the yearning to live a true Chris- tian life, and on the other by a feeble effort to break away, only to be swirled off her feet by the undertow of card passion into the eddying flood of worldliness. Card-playing destroys the desire and ability to pray, by which faith be- comes experience, for hazard is the devil 's only method of prayer and the card deck his only prayer book. All interest in spiritual things, and, above all, the love for the souls of others, not to speak of Christian influence over them, is gradually undermined and finally destroyed. Thus is spirituality demoralized and much of the apathy, worldliness, and impotence of the church explained. An Ex-gambler's Testimony One of the most striking books on the curse of gambling which has appeared is a book entitled The Curse of Cards 97 * * The Fool and His Money. ' ' It was written by Mr. Harry Brolaski, who spent more than twenty years of his life as a professional gam- bler, all over the United States, in every kind of gambling known. As an owner of horses, a lessee of tracks, as well as a bookmaker, he operated on practically all of the race tracks of the country. He owned and operated a gam- bling boat on the Mississippi river during the St. Louis Exposition, under the guise of a pleas- ure boat. He also conducted pool-rooms, policy games, and poker joints. His expose is a ter- rible arraignment of the awful curse that gam- bling wreaks upon the lives of men. So sensational and tragical was his book and such an impression did it make upon my own mind, that I wrote him, asking him his frank opinion about parlor card-playing. His letter^ which follows, ought forever to settle the ques* tion for every father and mother in this coun- try, and the attitude of every young man ancf woman toward this social indulgence. No words that I can utter so scathingly condemn the whole card-playing business. My Dear Dr. Stough: — I will give you my idea of so-called innocent card- playiQg as follows: The manufacturing of cards should he prohibited by law. Every parent who permits a deck of cards in the borne, and teachjes the young children how to play 98 Across the Dead Line of Amusements the sapposedly innocent game, is really committing a crime against his own off-spring, yet he does not real- ize it. If the attention of the mother and the father were drawn to the fact that they were giving their children first lessons in gambling, I believe they would put the cards out of their home. Parlor card playing, even old solitaire, and all card games are dangerous, and th^ lead to one end — gambling. I have seen many an old gentleman and old lady, playing a game of solitaire, become vexed at the cards because they couldn't get the game, and deliberately cheat them- selves to win the game, with nothing to gain. Now. what would they do with something to gain in sight ? I am strongly against card parties given by women's clubs, sometimes under the guise of charity. They, too, teach one point, and that is, to try and get some- thing for nothing. Gambling is a disease, in my opinion, and from my twenty-two years' experience, I must say that when it is inoculated into the system of the child, the gambling germ grows and grows until when that child reaches the age of twenty-five, he loses his sense of right and justice and expands his sense of greed. From my observation, children who are not per- mitted to play cards nor taught the game at home, when they reach the age of twenty-^ve and are then invited to card parties, decline the invitation because they look upon gambling, or card-plajring, as they would upon a drunkard and liquor-drinking. Such right-minded men and women make our history. There has never been a gambler in the president's chair, and there never will be. No bank will employ The Curse of Cards 99 a gambler and no bonding company will bond a gambler. Consequently, when parents teach their chil- dren the first lessons in card-playing, they are really taking away from them opportunities of life, — ^posi- tions, stability and character, — ^and no parent will do this knowingly and willingly. Yours very truly, . Harry Brolaski. The late Mr. John A. Gates, the multi-million- aire stock broker, at the Conference of the Gulf District Methodist Episcopal Church at Port Arthur, Texas, thus advised young men: ^' Never play cards nor gamble!'' He was speaking earnestly out of his own expediences and observations, and was himself considered famous as a bridge whist player. From Card Playing to Murder In an evangelistic campaign in Cambridge, Mass., we were accustomed to have people send in their requests for prayers, both for them- selves and others. One evening the following request was sent to the platform. As I read it I do not believe there was a dry eye in the house, and fervent prayers went up from all parts of the church for the unhappy writer. *'For the first time in fifteen years I heard the wonderful story yesterday. I have not slept since. Oh, pray for me, and with me, that I may lead a better 911915 100 Across the Dead Line of Amusements life. I, for one, know what it is to need a Saviour, a friend, a helping hand ix> guide. Stone walls and iron bars have encompassed me for years. Yet they were softer than the natures of the men placed over us to work our reformation. A few years ago I was convicted of a crime, and the sentence of the court was that I should pay the penalty with my life. The twelfth of October was the day set that I should go to the great beyond; I was granted a sixty days' reprieve, then a commutation of sentence to life. After spending the best days of my life in that living hell, I was pardoned. Where are the faithful wife, the two beautiful children that were torn from me, the father and mother who guided my first foot- steps? They have all gone to that home above. I am alone and friendless now. I ask you, do I know what trouble is? Do I need a Saviour? Do I need your prayers? If so, pray as you never prayed before, for the softening of this heart of stone, for one who feels himself lost, so I can meet my loved ones in that world beyond. An Ex-Convict. What a pitiful cry it is of a man whose life had been blighted and cursed by his crime I At the close of one of the afternoon meetings a few days later, a well-dressed man came up to me wrhom I took for one of our vrorkers. He extended his hand and said to me, *'I don't sup- pose you know me.'' When I replied that I could not place him, he said, *'I am the man who The Curse of Cards 101 wrote that request and who signed himself an * ex-convict. ' '* He then told me the story of his downfall and of the awful punishment for his crime. After he concluded, he said, ' * I came to tell you that after the night I sent up my re- quest, I gave myself to Christ and have found peace and joy in believing in Him, and the great burden has been lifted from my heart, and I wanted you to know it. ' ' His story made such a deep impression upon me that I asked him if he would not write it out that I might read it to the congregation that evening. He did so, as follows : This is the story of one who has sinned and suffered the consequences, one who has paid the penalty that the law allowed and society demanded — ^the same so- ciety that was responsible, — ^shall I say directly ? — for the crime. With Christian parents, at one time an active mem- ber of the church, educated at three universi- ties — McGill, Heidelberg, and Royal College of Phy- sicians and Surgeons, — I started a practice in the West. and was doing finely. I had made many friends, in- cluding a prominent judge, who was also a church member. Cards were played in that home. Election day came. The judge was on the opposite side of the platform believed in by my party. Al- though we believed differently in politics, we were still friends. After he was elected, a number of his intimate friends, with their wives, were invited to his houao 102 Across the Dead Line of Amusements to celebrate the occasion. After dimier the gentlemen of the party retired to one of the parlors to smoke. Wine did not stop at the dimier; it was served fre* quently during the earlier part of the evening. At last cards were introduced. About the same time, the ladies joined us. The ante was one dollar, the limit was the roof. Then came a select family card game. There were five players, one woman, four men. Luck seemed pitted against me ; I lost one hand after another. At last, when I had but twenty dollars left, luck seemed to change. It was the judge's deal. I held three kings, an ace, and a jack. I discarded the ace and the jack, and drawing two cards, caught my fourth king. I raised the bet aU I had; he raised my bet fifty dollars. The lady on my left had thrown up her hand. I let her see mine ; she passed me a roll of bills to back my hand, which of course I did. I called the judge. You can imagine my surprise when he laid down four aces. The wine and nervous tension were too strong. I shot him before he could take in the stakes. You already know the consequences. You can tell this story as you will, but kindly shield me from being known. In explanation of the terrible deed he told me that he saw the judge slip the fourth ace out of his sleeve and a frenzy of anger seized him to think that a judge would be so dishonest. For fifteen long, weary years he was con- demned to solitary confiaiement, and during all that time he was not permitted to read maga« The Curse of Cards 103 zine, book, nor papers, nor to do any task, but was compelled to sit idly in his cell all day long, with a guard on duty day and night. He said that the marvel was that he had not gone insane, for he believed that was their intention. As I looked upon his manly features, unmark- ed by dissipation or criminality (for had it not been for cards and wine, the crime would never have been committed), my whole soul re- coiled, and I said to myself as I say to you, **If card playing could so ensnare a splendid life, lead him to commit such a crime and then con- sign him to such bitter punishment, rob him of his influence and usefulness, break the hearts and send to untimely graves the dear ones who loved him, then how in the name of reason, con- science, or God, can moral people approve of and indulge in this cursed gamef Not the least element of this terrible tragedy was the fact that both the murdered judge and the phy- sician murderer were members of the church. Card Players the Church's Menace Card-playing Christians are indeed the men- ace of the church. It is such that make the work of the pastor almost impossible. Their lives belie their profession and their influence causes others to stumble. The sinner outside the church sees little difference between himself and them. 104 Across the Dead Line of Amnsements In a certain conununity there lived a gentle- man of excellent character and intelligence. Two chnrch officials, his companions in social life, were very anxious to secure him as a mem- ber of the church. These two elders were noted as card-players. Each entreated his pastor to visit the longed-for brother. He did, and had with him an hour or so of Christian conversa- tion. As the pastor urged the gentleman to sur- render to Christ, he replied, ''You want me to accept Christ and to unite with the church. I see no reason why I should. I see no gain in it. I see no difference between your officials (refer- ing to the two) and myself. They give me no example of anything superior in their lives. From me they differ only in that they pray in public and make a show of religion. I play cards, but they more ; I dance a little, but they more ; I go to the theatre, but they more than I. They go to card parties and dances instead of prayer-meeting. I do not believe that a Chris- tian should do such things. "Will you tell me frankly, what benefit may I expect in your church ? ^ ' The pastor was simply staggered. What could he say in defense? It would seem that if for no other reason than the world 's judgment. Christians ought to forswear cards. I have this story from the lips of Major J. H. Qole, — the retribution of a Sundajr-school The Cnrse of Cards 105 teacher who saw no harm in card-playing and set an example that finally cnrsed the lives of all her scholars : ^'In one of onr morning meetings a tramp arose and said, *This pew was the first and only one I ever sat in. My father was an elder in this chnrch and my mother a member. Seven Smiday-school scholars occupied this seat, — ^I was one of the number. We had a lady teacher whom we almost worshipped. Saturday afternoon we went to her home and studied our Sunday-school lesson, then had some re- freshments, and later amusements of various sorts. One day she taught us the game of cards. We all said our parents never let us play cards. She said, *Nice boys like you will never gamble, and it will rest your minds.* Our parents did not agree with her, but said, *Well, she is such a good woman, I guess the boys will not go wrong. ' * * Gradually we were fascinated with cards — and spent less time on the Sunday-school lesson. One Saturday we said to her, * Teacher, never mind the lesson to-day. ' Presently on our Sat- urday holidays we began to go down to the cotton gin to play cards. Later still, we began to gamble. Soon — ^no Sunday-school for us, — ^no church, but gambling — drinking. At last we became drunkards. I haven't been in this eturch for year?. Two of those Sunday-school 106 Across the Dead Line of Amnsements boys have been hung, three are in prison for life, and if the authorities knew where I am and another of the class, we, too, would be in prison. My father and dear mother are dead, — and I'm glad they are I Would to God I had never had such a Sunday-school teacher I' ** At that a scream came from a woman on the front seat. She arose and fell on the floor near the tramp, crying out : * And my God 1 1 am that Sunday-school teacher I * She was carried out, while the tramp hurried away and was never seen again. **For the sake of the Christian members of that church, and at their request, we promised not to give the name of the church. Hearts were broken because seven dear Sunday-school boys were ruined by a respectable Sunday- school teacher. * * Why need more be said ? Lives ruined, homes wrecked, parents, church officials, Sunday-school teachers, not only robbed of influence, but curs- ing the lives of others — ^how can we indulge or endorse the card game f May God impress the message upon every one who reads t THE DANCE OF DEATH ''A part7 of jonn^ people weie about to explore a eoal mine. One of the young ladies appeared dressed in white. A friend remonstrated with her. Not liking the interference she turned to the old miner, who was to eonduet them and said, Can't I wear a white dress down into the minef Tes, mum, was his replj, there is nothing to hinder you from wearing a white frock down there, but there 11 be considerable to keep you from wear- ing one back. There is nothing to hinder a Christian from conforming to the world's standard of living, but there is a good deal to keep him from being unspotted if he does.'' I The Dance of Death F we are to treat intelligently and fairly the subject of dancing, we must begin with defi- nitions, for there is ** dancing*' and ''danc- ing.'' The word covers a multitude of ideas. The word ** locomotion'^ expresses various phases of travel. The old lumbering '* prairie schoon- er" worming its way through the underbrush and forests and over the unbroken prairies, by which our forefathers heroically settled the middle and far West, was * * locomotion. ' ' The few miles of progress each day, jolting over the logs with not infrequent upsets, brought the travelers at last to their destination. The ' ' Twentieth Century Limited ' ' from New York to Chicago, traveling the steel rails at the rate of more than a mile a minute, making the nearly thousand miles in eighteen hours is also * 'locomotion. " Instead of the cotton-covered wagon, a Pullman car ; instead of board seats, upholstered couches; instead of a bed on the ground, a comfortable berth ; instead of a span of mules, a steel horse, which is the wonder of 109 110 Across the Dead Line of Amusements the age. Both methods of travel are ^^locomo- tion ! ' * But where is the resemblance f When asked, **Do you believe in ' dancing 'f my reply is, *^What do you mean by 'danc- ing'f^' The dancing of the present day is no more like the dancing referred to in the Bible than the *^ Twentieth Century Limited'' is like the ^^ prairie schooner,'' except that both are ' * dancing. ' ' The Bible and the Dcmce To use the Bible as an endorsement of the modem dance is about as sensible and fair as to use it to prove polygamy. To answer those who may not have discovered this, let me say that many years ago Dr. Lyman Beecher made a careful study of all the Scripture references to dancing and its practice among the Jews. His conclusions were as follows : Dancing was a religious act, both in true and idol worship. Dancing was performed by maidens only. Dancing was performed on joyful occasions, such as national festivals or great victories. Dancing was performed usually in the day time, in the open air, and in the highways, fields, and groves. ~ To pervert dancing from a sacred use to pur- poses of amusement was deemed infamous. The Dance of Death 111 There is no instance found where the sexes united either for worship or social amusement. Nor is there any instance of social dancing ex- cept of the **vain fellows void of shame'' al- luded to by Michal ; of the irreligious families described by Job, in which there was increased impiety ending in destruction ; and of Herodias, whose daughter danced off the head of John the Baptist. These conclusions ought forever to settle the attitude of the Word of God toward modem dancing. Past and Present Dancing From a purely ethical standpoint there are forms of dancing that can be scarcely classified as wrong, except that they are apt to foster an appetite for the grosser forms ; for instance, the stately minuet, the Virginia reel, the Maypole dance, the various clogs and flings, where the grace of movement is everything, and where beautiful figures and evolutions are gone through. In these, as formerly carried on, al- though men and women danced together, the re- lations were the most formal and dignified, and liberties not strictly within the bounds of pro- priety were neither granted nor taken. The square dance of later times, was very much of the same character. In recent years the dance has steadily deteri- 112 Across the Dead Line of Amusements orated. The reasons are not hard to discover. The gradual lowering of moral standards along all lines has lowered the dance along with them. The theatre, the amusement parks, Sunday pic- nics, lewd illustrations in papers and maga- zines, the errotic novel, the inordinate desire for pleasure, the ignorance of sex hygiene, the growing f amUiarity between the sexes, have had their ultimate effect upon the grosser animal passions. The dance, likewise, has made its pe- culiar appeal to the same propensities, and thus degenerated in its character. All these formal and more or less dignified dances have deteriorated into what is popu- larly known as the ^* round *' dance, which is a free-and-easy-all-the-time-swing-your-part- ners of the old * * square dance. ' ' It is this par- ticular form of the dance against which I desire to lodge my emphatic protest as demoralizing and dangerous. I have called it the * * Dance of Death.'' The Wrong Principle in the Dance My fundamental proposition is that music and motion never make that thing right which is otherwise wrong. If it be wrong from a social and ethical standpoint for a man to take liber- ties with the person of a woman off the dance- floor, then, simply because the music is playing two-four or three-four time and the feet are The Dance of Death 113 moving in rhythmic tread, shonld these liberties be permitted 1 Can music and motion destroy a moral principle t At a convention of the American Society of Dancing Professors in New York a few years ago, the President, Mr. Henry Doring, said: ** There is only one proper method and one proper position for proper dancing. When a gentleman escorts a lady to the dancing parlor and the music starts, the gentleman should place his right arm gently and carefully about the lady's waist while he takes the lady's right hand in his left. His left arm should be extended and held in a graceful curve half way between the lady's waist and shoulder. All other innova- tions are local and have no part in correct con- ventional dancing." It is evident from this statement that dancing professors recognize that their art, taught even in the most conventional and aesthetic way, de- mands the hand-clasp of partners and the more or less close embrace. The only excuse that can be urged for these liberties is the music and the motion. When the music starts and the feet move, then what would not otherwise be permissible, except in close and confidential family relations, is recognized as right and proper. If an ethical principle so quickly disappears, how would it look if this same position should be 114 Across the Dead Line of Amusements maintained by the dancing partners and the music were omitted, and the motion changed to a promenade f Would it appear modest and proper for a gentleman and a lady to walk up and down even a dancing floor in such an affec- tionate position! Or suppose the partners maintain this same position and the motion were omitted! In other words, suppose they sit down together with clasped hand^ and encircled waist to the music of a two-step I Would either of these two actions appear to be strictly within the bounds of modesty and propriety! Society would not condone the act for a moment, when either music or motion were omitted. The ethical principle appears I But presto I Here are music and motion with the act I And the ethical principle disappears, like a coin flipped up a magician's sleeve I I repeat, what is ethically wrong oif the dance floor, is ethically wrong on the dance floor, and music and motion cannot alter this moral prin- ciple. No woman has any right to allow a man not her father, her husband, her son, her brother, or other blood relative, any liberties with her per- son, and no man has any right to take such liber- ties with any woman not his mother, his wife, his daughter, his sister, or other blood relative. Such liberties indulged in promiscuously either in a public dance hall or a private parlor are The Dance of Death 115 bound to engender familiarities that eventually breed contempt among people, both young and old. Married people cannot grant such liberties to others than their own life partners without the same results. No man who loves his wife as he ought to love her can see her in the arms of another man without feeling (and rightfully so) a pang of jealousy, unless he himself enjoys the same pleasure with other women. His marriage secures for him alone such familiarity. No mar- ried woman can safely permit such liberties without endangering the very foundation stones of her home. Said a Philadelphia army oflScer, when first witnessing a round dance, **If I should see a man offering to dance with my wife in that way, I would horse-whip him. ' * The Lure of the Dance I am opposed to the round dance because per- fect dancing demands perfect movement, and perfect movement demands this very physical embrace. Dancers reply that the embrace is only an incident to the real enjoyment of the dance. I am not so sure that they know their own minds in the matter, because the very evolu- tion of the dance from the minuet to the two- step has seemd to be a continuous desire and at- tempt to bring the sexes into closer contact. The two bodies, interlocked in this embrace, are brought into such close contact in order that the 116 Across the Dead Line of Amusements two bodies may move as one upon the floor. There is no other way this can be so perfectly accomplished as by the encircling arms and hand-clasps. One who Eas looked upon a crowd of merry dancers and observed all the elements that go to make up their hours of pleasure must have been impressed with the fact that here is a most un- usual procedure . that receives the approval of society, is under its patronage, and poses under the guise of respectability. Here are men and women, single and married, choosing partners promiscuously. Some are acquainted, some recently introduced and that in a free-and-easy way, — submitting their bodies each to the other in close physical contact and to the rythm of voluptuous music, (for music may be as voluptuous and passionate as either pic- tures or books,) in an over-heated room, with the atmosphere heavy with the perfume of flowers and poisoned with the breath of many dancers. Women, gowned so that necks, shoulders, bosoms, and arms are exposed, are clasped in the familiar embrace of their partners, who breathe their hot breath down upon the ex- posed parts ; the animal heat, increased by the perspiration of exercise and the delicate per- sonal magnetism, passes each into the other, through the close contact and through the un- avoidable intermingling of limbs. It is a sight The Dance of Deatli ll7 calctdated to startle every thoughtful and un- biased observer. ^^Let us take this couple, for example. He is stalwart, agile, mighty ; she is tall, supple, lithe, and beautiful in form and feature. Her head rests upon his shoulder, her face is upturned to his ; her naked arm is almost around his neck ; her swelling breast heaves tumultuously against his; face to face they whirl, his limbs inter- woven with her limbs; with strong right arm about her yielding waist, he presses her to him until every curve in the contour of her lovely body thrills with the amorous contact. Her eyes look into his, but she sees nothing ; the soft music fills the room, but she hears nothing; swiftly he whirls her from the floor or bends her frail body to and fro in his embrace, but she knows it not; his hot breath is upon her hair, his lips almost touch her forehead, yet she does not shrink ; his eyes gleaming with a fierce lust, gloat, satyr-like, over her, yet she does not quail ; she is filled with a rapture divine. ' * I am far from intimating that all people who engage in such questionable practice do so with impure thoughts and motives, but I do say that, constituted as we are, those who indulge do so at a great risk to their morals and characters. It can but be dangerous and full of the most in- sidious temptations, and any one who stops to 118 Across the Dead Line of Amusements consider the possible consequent sins, trembles for many of the dancers. ** Flush in the cheek and languish in the eyes, ^*Eush to the heart and glisten through the frame, ** With half -told wish, and ill-dissembled flame'* advertise that there is more than music and mo- tion to the ecstasy of the dance. Both men and women pass from one dance to the other, and one partner to the other, all through the long hours of the night, while every fibre of the body is a-tingle, and every muscle becomes wearied and jaded, until at last two by two they take their way to their carriages, their homes, and their sleepless couches. A Confession I have before me the confession of a woman who at last analyzed for herself the meaning of her passion for the dance. She is said to be among the most eminent women in America. Her words are tremendously convincing: In the soft floating of the waltz I found a strange pleasure, rather difiieult to describe. The mere antici- pation fluttered my pulse, and when my partner ap- piioaehed to claim my promised hand for the dance, I felt my cheeks glow a little sometimes, and I could not look him in the eyes with the same frank gaiety as heretofore. But the climax of my confusion was reached when, folded in his warm embrace, and giddy with the whirl, The Dance of Death 119 a strange, sweet thrill would shake me from head to foot, leaving me weak and almost powerless, and really almost obliged to depend for support upon the arm which encircled me. If my partner failed from ignor- ance, lack of skill, or innocence, to arouse these, to me, most pleasurable sensations, I did not dance with him a second time. I am speaking openly and frankly and when I say that I did not understand what I felt, or what were the real and greatest pleasures I derived from the so- called dancing, I expect to be believed. But if my cheeks grew red with uncomprehended pleasure then, they grow pale with shame to-day when I think of it all. It was the physical emotions engen- dered by the magnetic contact of strong men that I was enamored of — ^not of the dance, nor even of the men themselves. Thus I became abnormally developed in my lowest nature, I grew bolder, and from being able to return but shy glances at first, was soon able to meet more glaring ones, until the waltz became to me, and who- soever danced with me, one lingering, sweet and purely sensual pleasure, where heart beat against heart, hand was held in hand, and eyes looked words which lips dared not speak. Married now, with home and children around me, I can at least thank God for that experience which will assuredly be the means of preventing my little daugh*- ters from engaging in any such dangerous pleasures. But if a young girl, pure and innocent in the begin- ning, can b^ brought to feel whrt I confess to havo 120 Across the Dead Line of Amusements f elty what must be the ezx>erience of a married woman f She knows what every glance of the eye, every bend of the head, every clasp, means; and knowing that recip- rocates it, and is led to swifter steps and a sorer path down the dangerous, dishonorable road. I doubt if my experience will be of much service, but it is the candid truth from a woman, who, in the cause of all young girls who may be contaminated, desires to show to just what extent a young mind may be defiled by the injurious effects of round dances. I have not hesitated to lay bare what are a young girl's most secret thoughts, in the hope that people will stop and consider, at least, before handing their lilies of purity over to the arms of any one who may choose to blow the f rosly breath of dishonor on their petals. The Dancing Position vs. Morals In showing that there is a direct moral rela- tion between the dancing position and its music and motion, a most suggestive article appeared recently, written by Mr. Mikail Mordkin, the Bussian dancer. He remarks how little the American audience seems to realize that panto- mimic dancing is capable of even great expres- sion and meaning. **In Eussia we have been taught that great drama, the real, pulsating, vital, drama of the real world, is silent drama. The most dramatic moments in a man's or woman's life are rarely accompanied by words. Great feeling, deep emotion, in everyday life, is scarcely ever accompanied by speech. The The Dance of Death 121 heart, the chief organ of life's profonnd drama, cannot talk/' He then illustrates how he was tanght to ex- press such emotion as hate with his body in movement. *^As a matter of fact, when a man hates another, his hatred projects back into his head a spirit of strength in himself, and his body takes an npright rigidity. Show this through the body of the dramatic dancer, and your audience will feel the quality of hatred. ' ' To those, therefore, who say the position is inconsequential and secondary, comes the art of this professional dancer declaring that the body does express itself in its position and motion. He builds his whole art upon this principle. At a conference of the American National Association of Dancing Masters in Chicago, a Miss Margaret Thuma, describing what she called *'The Soul Dance,'* said: ** Dancing must reach the soul. True dancing of this sort is the expression of the soul through the mind by motion of the body. The result will be a per- sonal magnetism that will contain our inner selves and hold our audience.'* To assert, then, that close contact and re- cline of partner upon partner is meaningless, is to dispute those who have made a life study of the art of dancing, and are its most finished exponents. Likewise it is to deny what Mr. Mordkin declares his audiences feel and what 122 Across the Dead Line of Amusements Miss Thnma declares holds her audiences. Snrely the onlooker cannot be so far wrong when he sees and feels that it is the flush of passion, in every sinewy movement and in the dreamy eyes of the dancers that holds them as they hold each other in its dreamy whirls. However ignorant the dancers may be of their own feelings, they thus betray themselves to those who have eyes to see and minds to com- prehend. Passion the Basis of the Dance There can be no doubt that passion is the basis of the round dance. I use the word * * pas- sion" advisedly — ^I do not say **lusf No better proof of this is needed than that dancing is the only amusement which demands the commingling of sexes. Neither parlor dances nor public balls could be maintained any length of time if men and women were to dis- port themselves only with their own sex. Can you imagine men, after working hard all day, arraying themselves in their dress suits, calling for each other in carriages or automo- biles, and dancing through the long hours of the night together? The appeal of the dance is for the opposite sex. Even in gymnasiums where young women are taught the dancing step for physical development, handkerchiefs fl,re frequently tied around the arms of one part- The Dance of Death 123 ner that she may be recognized as taking the part of the gentleman. If young ladies doubt the statement that pas- sion is the basis of this pleasure they would be convinced of its truth if, instead of remaining in the house when they are escorted home the next time by their gentlemen friends, they could secretly follow them back to the restaurant or club-room where the young men are wont to gather, and, if possible, get near enough to hear what they say. They would not only be amazed but their cheeks would bum with mortification and shame as they heard the various comments. They would discover that the most popular dancer was the girl who yielded herself most perfectly to the embraces of her partners ; that not only was this conducive to the most grace- ful dancing but also made her far and away the most attractive to them. Her popularity would be explained, and her vanity crushed, let us hope. Says Professor Faulkner, ^*She would hear such remarks as, * * Miss is a perfect stick. I would not give a fig to dance with her. You can't arouse any more passion in her than you could in a putty man. To waltz with such as she is not what I go for.** And this, remember, does not ** refer to rough, un- cultured men, but to those who are looked upon by society as most polished, refined, and desir- able young men.*' 124 Across the Dead Line of Amusements A dancing teacher, who is also an expert dancer, said, **It matters not how perfectly she knows and takes the steps, a dancer must yield herself perfectly both to her partner 's embrace and also to his emotion. Until a girl can and tvill do this, she is regarded as a scrnb by the male experts. * ' In a western college town not so very long ago, says a current Y. M. C. A. magazine, a dance was given by the Freshman class. After escorting his young lady home about midnight a freshman came in where three other college men were sitting, who roomed at the same club house, and immediately began to discuss the dance and the girls he danced with. **In a burst of physical passion he said: * Oh, boys! You should have seen the ** guinea'' I danced with to-night; she was a ^* pippin" for fair and let me love her up in good shape. If I had had half a chance, I could have gone the limit, but I will get her to-morrow night.' " Suppose this had been you, my young lady friend ! Yet this was said by a supposedly self-re- specting young college man of a reputable young woman who had no idea of the thought that was committed against her, nor does she know it to this day I k THe Dance of Death 125 DiS'Creation vs. Re-creation Prof. Amos R. Wells, editor of the Christicm Endeavor World, says: *^ Dancing, like all Gaul, is divided into three parts; one-third i^ aesthetic, one-third is physical exercise, one- third is sensual. As to the first, the enjoyment of the fine music, of beautiful dresses, of forms and motion, these may all be had under better auspices than in the dance. A woodland ram- ble, a tenis tournament, an archery club, bicycle or horse-back riding, the concert-room — ^these furnish in God's own way tenfold more beauty to the eye and ear than is furnished by the finest ball given. As for the second third, the physical exercise, it is ill-timed, ill-environed. Hot air, gaslight, excitement, midnight crowds, loaded supper-tables, noise, — ^these make a poor outfit for a gymnasium. Every investigator of the dance as now practiced in America, will agree that the third part into which this heathen Gaul is divided, is the stronghold of the prov- ince. The sensuality of the dance makes bold- eyed women of soft-eyed maidens; it makes swaggering rakes of pure lads ; it changes love to flirtation and a game of flippant shrewdness ; it makes applicable to manly America, Tolstoi's terrific strictures on ignoble Bussia. It never re-creates a Christian; it dis-creates a Chris- tian and creates a sensualist." 126 Across the Dead Line of Amusements Says Dr. H. M. Tenney: "The testimony of one of our college presidents is, that of the students under his instruction the poorest scholars of the class have been the dancing scholars, and those students who have occasion- ed hjm the most trouble in the discipline of the college, have uniformly come from dancing communities. *The tendency of these amuse- ments,' he says, *is always and everywhere, to create a distaste for mental application and honest work in those who love them; to make idle and frivolous and brainless men and wom- en.* This is honest testimony, worthy of sober consideration. Having occasion to quote it in the presence of a well-known educator of Minnesota a few years since, he sent me a note from which I extract the following: ^ After an experience of nearly a third of a century de- voted to the cause of education, and especially to the management of institutions of learning for both sexes, I am fully prepared to confirm all that was stated by the college president re- ferred to, with the added testimony that danc- ing and card-playing students are far less sen- sitive to moral influences and more liable to become subjects for discipline than are those who have not schooled themselves in those fashionable vices. I have also found during the nearly seven years of our struggles here to build up an institution worthy of the age, that The Dance of Death 127 the social influences prevailing in this city among our youth, sustained too often by Chris- tian parents, are among the most serious ob- stacles with which we have to contend. ^ Testi- mony to the contrary I am unable to quote, be- cause I cannot find it. ' ' Opinions of Dancing Masters There is no question that even the dancing professors of the present day recognize the growing tendencies and immoralities of their art. The ** United Professional Teachers of Dancing'* at a recent convention in New York, discussed among other things the methods of correcting and reforming present-day dancing. One of them said this : ** As a matter of fact, all dances need reforming when we witness the vulgar positions and nonsensical running and chasing around practiced in the ball-rooms of the Four Hundred to-day, and given the name of ** round dance.*' It is no wonder that pas- tors and parents disapprove of the terpsi- chorean art. For the degenerated style of dancing of the present day, I have always held that the college boy and the so-called educated classes are responsible. The positions assumed by some of them in ball-rooms are positively indecent. The middle and poorer classes wit- ness such things, and believing they are the fashion and correct, practice them and perhaps 128 Across the Dead Line of Amusements exaggerate thenu It is to rectify evils of that character and to elevate their art, that teach- ers of dancing are forming associations and holding conventions. * ' The ** National Society of Dancing Masters'' met in Boston some time ago for its twenty- third annnal convention. One of them said this: ** Dancing to-day is the most degrading thing on earth. It is demoralizing onr young people. If it is allowed to go on, it will bring the country to ruin. The man who conducts the dance hall to-day is no better than a saloon- keeper.'* Other professors described them as "vulgar and improper/' ** indecent and disgust- ing.*' The Presbyterian Board publishes the fol- lowing : * * The dancing school, instead of being called a school of easy manners ought rather to be styled a place where girls are taught to sub- stitute the finesse of the coquette for true femi- nine delicacy, and where boys take their pri- mary lessons iq the arts of seduction. ' ' Deterioration and Debauchery of the Dance In a series of letters purported to be written by a brother to his sister, and printed in a cur- rent magazine, the brother says concerning the popular two-step: **Why, sis, it's an insult to call a thing like that a dance. There is no dancing in it : it is just a case of grab and slide The Dance of Death 129 &i e£rat ir p^ illfe and shuflBe : not a spark of poetic feeling abont J^3t tc, it-, not the slightest talent is required to dance it. It is all right for * kids' of eighteen or yonnger who know no better (!) but for a young j[35j^« woman and a young man to shuflEle through such a fool thing is lowering to one of the most graceful of the social arts, to say nothing of £ lowering to one 's self. I do ask that my dancing shall be reputable and graceful, and the two- step is neither one nor the other. It is a hide- ous and a rowdy shuffle. I don't wonder that Allen Dodworth, the father of American danc- ing, condemned it, and that at the last annual convention of dancing masters it was likewise condemned, and the teachers were asked not to ., give instructions in it any longer. •' ^^ . The round dance has deteriorated lower and lower until some of the most disgraceful dances have been introduced into this same polite so- ciety. At Palm Beach, two well-known society girls are said to have danced one of these vul- f gar dances on the sand, watched by a large crowd of people. 0t Society in New York has now taken up dances which would not be permitted by the police in the lowest theatres. One of these dances, the '^Argentine Tango,'* is a dance of the natives of South America and is worse than the **Hooche Kooche" or the **Hoola Boola.'* 1^ The ** Grizzly Bear,'' which gets its name from (ed- lit 130 Across the Dead Line of Amusements the bear-like positions assumed by the dancers, originated with the negroes in San Francisco. Society has been shown the ** grizzly'* and is dancing it in its worst form with the bear-hug and all. The most offensive feature of the ** Turkey Trot*' like the *' Grizzly Bear'* and the ** Tango,** it is said, results in the bodily move- ment of the dancers who in all the dances at a certain stage, get as closely together as it is possible to get and move. A professor of dancing said: ** Something will have to be done to prevent the spread of the popularity of these dances, as their effect tends towards immorality and is demoralizing the ball-room. I want it understood that I positively will not teach these dances. If so- ciety insists on taking these dances of the na- tives of the tropics and the Bowerys and of low places in Paris, dancing masters can not help it.** While these dances are not permitted in any of the public dancing places, they are danced by fashionable people at private parties, which goes to show that in so-called society the parlor dance has become even more demoralizing and dangerous than the public dance halls. What a warning to parents who advocate select par- lor dancing I The daring of the modem dance is perfectly The Dance of Death 131 alarming. Under the guise of art dancers at a leading theatre- in St. Louis danced with limbs unclad until stopped by the chief of police. In Munich a Parisian dancer danced nude at a private entertainment of artists, was arrested by the police, and then defended in court by several of the artists on the ground that it was thoroughly artistic and respectable. One pro- fessor expressed the hope that the time would come when an advance in culture would enable the dancer to perform in public instead of pri- vately. No wonder George Moore once ex- claimed, ^'Blessed are the innocent, for theirs is the kingdom of Art. ' * Dancing the Cause of Immorality Dancing, therefore, has become one of the greatest causes of immorality. Some one has said, **The dancing hall is the nursery of the divorce court and the training-ship of prostitu- tion.'* Prof. G. Stanley Hall is led to declare: **In place of the pristine power to express love, jus- tice, penalty, mourning, fear, anger, consola- tion, divine service, symbolic and philosophic conception, and every industry and character- istic of life in pantomime and gesture, we have in the dance of the modem ball-room only a degenerate relic with at best but a very insig- 132 Across the Dead Line of Amusements nificant cultural value, and too often stained with bad associations. ' ' Many other physiologists and psychologists in our universities, who have studied the ques- tion from a purely technical standpoint, go far- ther, and say that the ecstasy of the enjoyment of the dance, in the final analysis (after due al- lowance is made for the pleasure from the rhythmical movements and the rapturous music) is the ecstasy of physical passion I The flushed cheek, the languid eye, the fast-heaving bosom and half-recumbent position of the young woman, has been the signal to her part- ner that she is past her own control and can be swayed by his will. Woe to the girl, then, whose partner is not pure and high-minded ! A BlastM Life Mr. T. A. Faulkner, a converted dancing master, tells a tragical story that happened in Los Angeles a few years ago. It is of a beau- tiful girl deliberately singled out on the street, tracked to her home, to her place of business, and to her church, by a scoundrel bent on her overthrow. He enlisted the co-operation of a dancing master. She was invited to his danc- ing school. She consulted her pastor as to whether she should go, and consented only when he said he saw no harm. God pity such a care* The Dance of Death 133 less pastor! Here she met the man who had planned it all. She was invited to a grand ball, induced to drink, and ruined. The awful remorse gnawed upon her more and more. In time she was to become a mother. Shunned by all her old friends and companions, in despair she com- mitted a greater crime and through it sealed her doom. When dying she sent for Mr. Faulk- ner. **I am so glad,** she said, *'that you came to see me, so glad to know that you are to ex- pose the evil which buds in the dance hall. Do not delay your Work. I have prayed God to spare my life that I might go and warn young girls against that which has made such a wreck of my once pure and happy life. When I en- tered the dancing school I was as innocent as a child, and free from sin and sorrow, but under its influence and in its associations I lost my innocence, my purity, my all. Promise me that you will go before the world and speak out a warning against the dance, and try to save young girls from the sin, the disgrace, and de- struction dancing has brought upon me.** **I know the man,** says he, **who was the perpetrator of the crime which was the cause of this sad death. He, to-day, instead of being hung for murder, as he so richly deserved, is a leader in society. His name often appears in the social columns of the daily papers of Los 134 Across the Dead Line of Amusements Angeles as the leader of some fashionable danc- ing party or Kirmess. He has been the winner of several prizes in dancing, in fact, is an ele- gant dancer and is wealthy. These two facts gain for him admission to whatsoever society he chooses to enter/' Testimony of the Clergy The testimony of ministers and priests who have to do with the spiritual welfare of young people is to the same effect. Archbishop Spaulding of New York is reported as saying that nineteen out of every twenty cases of lapsed virtue are traceable to the round dance. The Catholic confessional affords great oppor- tunity for discovering the real condition of people's morals, and such testimony as this is startling. Said Father Lockman, a priest in Wisconsin, '* After twenty years' experience in the confes- sional, I have come to some certain opinions on the question of dancing among young people. It is my observation that many a young girl has been corrupted by the evil influence of the dance. If the fathers and mothers who think their children entirely innocent, could listen to some of the things that come to my ears as a priest, they would shed bitter tears.'' Bishop Gore, of the Episcopal Church of New York State, said, **The gross, debasing waltz The Dance of Death 135 would not be tolerated another year if Chris- tian mothers in our communion would only set their faces against it, and remove their daugh- ters from its contaminations and their sons from that contempt of womanhood and woman- ly modesty which it begets. ' ' Every religious denomination of importance in the United States (except the Mormon church) at one time or another has gone on record against the dance. Space forbids the printing of resolution after resolution of these many ecclesiastical bodies. The Opinions of Other Trustworthy Witnesses Boards of Education in many places, as the one in Elgin, 111., have issued orders to the pupils in the public schools forbidding dances under school auspices, considering them de- structive of good morals. The universal testimony of Eescue Homes where unfortunate girls are cared for, is that the dance hall is the chief cause of the defec- tions in girls * morals. The Matron of the Woman's Home in Ge- neva, HI., is reported as saying that over eighty- seven per cent, of the girls in that institution have confessed that their first downward steps were taken in the dance hall. One of the girls, when questioned how she came to be in the Geneva Home, said that she was given tickets 136 Across the Dead Line of Amusements to a dance hall ; when she got there she drank, because she would not be considered a ^^good fellow'' if she did not. The steps to ruin are very plain; first, the dance hall; second, intoxicating liquors; third, the house of refuge, if not the house of ill- fame. The Chicago Vice Commission charges the dance hall with being one of the chief con- tributors to the delinquency of youth in that city, and the feeder of public and private pros- titution. In the year 1907 more than 3,700 spe- cial bar permits were issued by the city of Chicago, practically all of which were to be is- sued in dance halls or in similar places. Think what destruction of young womanhood this spells I Two Frightful Stories In illustration of the corruption of the dance in respectable communities, I have the follow- ing incident from a distinguished Presbyterian minister in Ohio, who knew all the facts con- nected with it. It happened in a village in a farming conmiunity, composed of fine old fami- lies. Many of the young men and young women of the community had been away to college, and there were among the persons involved some who were college graduates. You will notice it did not happen in a city with its allurements or high-toned balls, but in a rural The Dance of Death 137 comnmnity; and that it did not take place among blase society people nor tempted shop girlSy but among cultured and college young people. '^ During the autumn a small circle of young people organized a private dancing club, and during the winter held these dances at the homes of their parents at intervals of perhaps one week. In the spring the pastor of the church came to his brother with a heavy heart. Of the number of young women, there were seven who were about to become mothers, and some of them were members of his church. Every one was from a fine family. The pastor said they confessed it had come about as a direct result of the winter of dancing.'* The fact that there was no tough class in this community, that they were above the average intelligence, and that they were supposed to be of the purest moral characters, reveals the subtle snare found in the round dance wherever it is indulged. Neither heredity, education, culture, nor social standing were barriers high enough to prevent the demon of passion overleaping the walls which are supposed to be sufficient protection for the average moral person. A pastor in an Illinois mining town some years ago, said that a big dance hall was run one winter in connection with a saloon. In the rear of the dance hall was a bam. One night. 138 Across the Dead Line of Amusements after the girls had become inflamed with pas- sion and intoxicated with liquor, they were taken to the bam. The result of this one night's debauchery was the birth of sixteen il- legitimate children. Many of the girls were farmers' daughters. None of them prior to this night had been considered immoral. They were just ordinary young people, trapped by the dance and liquor and smirched by lust that put its incubus of shame upon innocent baby- hood. Statistics gathered by settlement workers and civic bodies over the United States cor- roborate the statement that the dance hall is responsible for the downfall of the vast major- ity of the inmates of houses of prostitution. As has been remarked, no social amusement grants such liberties as the dance. What would not only be prohibited elsewhere, but, on the other hand, would be most scathingly rebuked by refined society, is condoned and approved on the dance floor. For a young man to take such liberties in the parlor of his dancing partner would not only be the grossest of insults, but would likely bring the police patrol. No young man who calls himself decent would think of being introduced to a young woman in a parlor and within fifteen minutes taking such liberties with her person. It is passing strange that what a young The Dance of Death 139 woman would not permit in her parlor to a self- respecting young man six months after such introduction, nor at any time unless because of an acknowledged reciprocating love she will permit on the dancing floor after the briefest kind of an acquaintance. Certainly there is nothing in all the realm of human relations that offers such unparalleled opportunities to the young man with sinister motives and wicked heart. The Dance and the White Slave Trafjfic The strength of the so-called ** White Slave Traffic'* is in the dance and the dance hall. It is a known fact to the police of cities that the ^^ cadets'' — but another name for ** procur- ers ' ' — haunt the dance halls, there to select the victims for their nefarious business. Unsophis- ticated young women, simply desiring amuse- ment and recreation from their arduous daily toil, are trapped like flies in a spider's web. Eev. Ernest A. Bell, Superintendent of the Midnight Mission, Chicago, one of the foremost in the fight against the White Slave Traffic, whose daily contact with the victims of vice, and whose Christlike labors have resulted in the reclamation of many **lost" girls, wrote me as follows : As a faithful witness I must testify that dancing, drinking, and debauchery are the underworld triplets. / 140 Across the Dead Line of Amusements These three evils in the hands of the vice traffickers are the chief means of destroying^ girls and debauch- ing young men. The public dance halls are invariably bad, and are recognized recruiting grounds for procurers. Th^ weaken self-control in both sexes, and feed the brothels alike with victims and patrons. The select private dance is dangerous. Wh^i I sought the advice of Mr. , whom you and I love and honor as a man of generous views, he told me that he had allowed his son to take lessons in a very select dancing school in , with disastrous conse- quences. He said of dancing, ' ' The girls, being purer, may escape, but the boys are so inflamed that they go home hy way of the brothel." A musician recently reported to his pastor in , that he had not slept the night before, after his danc- ing teacher, a woman, had voluntarily taught him how to gain wicked control of a dancing partner. Very heartily yours, Ernest A. Bell. Nor is this all. These procurers travel the country over, going into towns, hamlets, and even smaller country districts. They are gen- tlemanly in bearing, they wear spotless linen, and up-to-date clothes, perhaps the insignia of some fraternal order. They introduce them- selves to the young men of the community as traveling men, and in turn are introduced to the finest and fairest young women. These human vultures who, under no pretence whatever, The Dance of Death 141 would be admitted to these young women *s par- lors are given, through society's formal intro- duction, carte blanche privilege to encircle the waists of these young women in the dance within a few moments after such introduction. Their gentlemanliness, their grace in dancing, their conversational powers are attractive, to say the least, if not alluring, to the inexperi- enced girl. The dance gives them ; ample op- portunity for gracious compliments, and even flattery, for an extra pressure upon hand and waist, for unexpected excitement of the pas- sions, for refreshments, and a quiet tete-a-tete between dances, for inquiring into the girPs home relations, her aspirations, her plans, etc. If the girl is dissatisfied with her home, and is de- sirous of going to the city for employment, in- formation is given her and plans are suggested. Frequently friendships thus begun are follow- ed by brief courtships and mock marriages. Lodge balls, charity balls, and other dances are now known to be used by these villains for their nefarious business. If ever a young woman is allured by them to board a train, she is as good as lost, for in spite of the vigilance now insti- tuted by the railroad companies and the Young Women's Christian Associations of the vari- ous cities, the girls are accompanied or met by the procurers and driven away in closed 142 Across &e Dead Line of Amusements cabs to the brothels. When once there, there is practically no escape. General Theodore Bingham, formerly Com- missioner of Police in New York, recently de- clared, ^ ' There are fifty thousand young women and girls lost in the United States every year. They simply drop out of existence. '* Some of these find honorable employment, but the ma- jority are swallowed up in the maw of the mon- ster vice. It is estimated that at least sixty thousand are required every year to fill up the ranks of professional prostitutes. It was re- ported recently that within a period of thirty days seventeen hundred girls had been lost be- tween New York and Chicago, all of whom were still missing. To know that young women thus expose them- selves to these frightful temptations and pos- sible ruin can be explained only by their dense ignorance. That the business does prey upon the trust- ing innocence and dense ignorance of woman- hood is the most pathetic side of this peril. It is because women do not understand the real meaning of the dance, and are slow to believe such facts as are printed herein, that the traffic in blood goes on and so many thousands each year are sinking hopelessly to despair. There is nothing that these human vampires so desire as to have respectable people approve The Dance of Death 143 « of and even participate in dancing, for they know that as long as decent people do not know and at the same time are accessible through the dance, they are bound to continue to succeed in securing victims. In a personal letter to me, Mr. Faulkner en- closed the following letter sent him after he had written his startling book. No more trag- ical story could be told of a victim of girlish innocence and motherly ignorance. The poor girl was more sinned against than sinning. May its reading stir the heart of every reader I After reading your book, I take the liberty to ad- dress a letter to you in which I will give you a brief sketch of my life and ball-room experience. If you can use it to advaatage, do so. I thank Ood there is one coTU'ageous enough to publish the ball-room as you have portrayed it in your small book. I was bom in Boston, Mass. My parents were Methodists. They moved to Cleveland, Ohio, when I was quite yonng. For some reason unknown to me, they united with the Presbyterian church in Cleveland. They knew very little about the sins of the world. They took great care in raising me : in fact, very few girls have the careful training I received. The only place I went was to church, and mother was always with me : I knew no wrong. I was as pure as an angel when mother wanted me to learn to dance. She said it would make me more graceful, that the members of our church had formed a select dance club and wanted me to join them. Oh 1 1 would to God I had read such 144 Across the Dead Line of Amusements an article on. the ball-room as yon have published. It would have saved me and many anotiber pure and in- nocent soul from disgrace and a life of shame, to which the ball-room leads. How well I remember the first party ! I was dressed with my arms perfectly bare and a very low-necked dress. That evening was the first time a man encircled my waist with his arm and drew me up to his bosom. I was shocked and mortified at this, the waltz position. Bnt I saw all the rest were assoming the same, and before the evening was over I began to like the dance. I did not then know whether it was the dance I liked or being enveloped in a man's arms in the space of a waltz. I remember the one I enjoyed dancing witih most was the Sunday-school superintendent I Sweet emotions would creep over me as we swayed back and forth over the floor. He always had plenty of part- ners, — ^the girls said they enjoyed dancing with him 80 much. The young man who could not arouse those emiotions, we would not care to dance with the second time. Without that, the waltz was very tiresome. On the following Sunday we could not look one an- other in the eyes with the same frankness as before. Even up to this time I knew not that I was doing wrong. Mother was always present: through her ig- norance and innocence she could not see that I was being hurled to perdition, — so I gave full sway to the |iance. One night I attended a grand charity ball givoi to raise money for church purposes. Under the influence of the emotions derived from the dance, another girl and myself fell victims of the ball-room that night The Dance of Death 145 On returning home late I found mother quite worried ; to her inquiries I told her my first lie. Of course she believed me. On the following Sabbath I could not attend my Sunday-school, I had started on my way to ruin. I then vowed I would never dance again, but to my surprise my parents had arranged for a select dance to be given in my own home, and the brute who ruined me — ^my private daacing teacher — ^was there. I was compelled to treat him with respect. He had me at his mercy. To my horror I soon learned that it had been found out that I had lost my character. I was excluded from society. Every finger was pointed at me with shame, — I became desperate. Finally I met the one who was the cause of my trouble ; he of- fered to take m^ to Chicago and marry me, to which I consented. He took me to a house in Chicago, and left me saying he would soon return with a minister. It was the last I ever saw of him. I soon found out I was an inmate of a disreputable house. I could not leave, having no place to go. I was out of money, with character gone, so I sauk to the lowest depths of hell, where many another innocent soul has gone before me. I learned from my landlady that the ball-room Apollo, the private dancing-teacher, the very one who led me to ruin, was in her employ. While I was in the house, two other girls were brought there who met their ruin as I did, — ^in the ball-room. And the men who were the ball-room, Apollos received their com- mission. All this happened inside of eight months after my own mother sent me on my road to ruin by having me learn to dance. But I praise God for the Salvation Army lassies 146 Across the Dead Line of Amusements and their Beseae HomesI I was rescued by them, saved by the blood of Jesns; I am a worker for the Master to-day, having a good Christian home. I hope this will be a warning to some motiier!" The ignorant mother, the innocent girl, the worldly Sunday-school superintendent, the pri- vate dancing lessons, the careless church mem- bersy the select home dance, the church charitj^ ball, the vile dancing-teacher, the house of pros- titution! were all guilty together, — ^who shall say which will be the most culpable before God at the judgment? The following indictment against ^^sin" also forcefully describes the cunning and deceptive character of the dance : '^Sin is composed of nought but subtle wiles, It fawns and flatters and betrays by smiles ; 'Tis like the panther, or the crocodile. It seems to love and promises no wile, It hides its sting, seems harmless as a dove, It hugs the soul and hates when most vows love. It plays the tyrant most by gilded pills. It secretly ensnares the soul it kills. Sin's promises — They all deceitful be. Doth promise wealth, but pays us poverty; Doth promise honor, but doth pay us shame ; And quite bereaves a man of his good name ; Doth promise pleasure, but doth pay us sorrow, Doth promise life to-day, pays death to-mor- row. The Dance of Death 147 No thief so vile, nor treacherous as sin. Whom fools do hng and take much pleasure in/' Attempts at Reform [Attempts are being repeatedly made to ster- ilize and purify the dance. I have friends in social settlements who are trying the experi* ment. They feel that the natural craving for such amusement should be met by furnishing it with proper environment. I appreciate most heartily the sincerity of these attempts, but I can but feel they are dangerous. The essential- ly wrong principle abides, whatever the condi- tions. Eecently even a church in Chicago began holding weekly balls. The opening night the pas- tor declared, as he looked upon three hundred gay dancers, **It is the proudest moment of my life. Dancing is, in my opinion, the greatest asset the church has to-day. These weekly .dances will be beneficial in approximately the same measures as will my sermons." As sincere as this minister evidently is, it seems pathetic that he should be so stupid as to declare virtue's greatest enemy the church's greatest asset, and that he should not see that his sermons must have tragically degenerated if they now make an appeal on a level with the dance. How the heart of Christ must ache 148 Across the Dead Line of Amusements over such lowering of standards and caterings to worldliness to help conserve the yonng life of the city. With the appetite created and the indulgence fostered by a pastor and a church, who can predict the ultimate consequences of such shepherding of the sheep and feeding of the lambs f Discussing the dance as I have from the moral standpoint, it seems to me unnecessary to discuss it from the higher Christian stand* point and standards of holy living and influ- ence. If dancing is not moral, then it immedi- ately passes out of the realm and argument of casuistry and the plea for abstinence for the sake of the weak brother. If these arguments have been fairly proven then no person who has the simplest notions of right and the ordinary standards of morals can indulge conscientiously and modestly. To the Christians at Eome, in a city where every form of iniquity ran riot, dancing not least, Paul wrote: "Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, let us walk decently as in the day : not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof. '* ^ Printed In the United SUtes of AbmImu 1* I THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY R8F8RBNCB DBPARTMBNT This book is oadcr bo oireomstanees to be tiikeo from die Boildiatf IJ^oIi goem «M